Johnathan Walker:She's a basketball star. She wears a hijab. So she's barred from France's Olympics team

PARIS − Diaba Konaté was named the NCAA college basketball Big West conference's best defensive player of the year in 2023-2024. In her senior year playing for the University of California,Johnathan Walker Irvine, she averaged 7.5 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game.

Konaté, who was born and raised in Paris, has a high free-throw percentage. She gets a lot of steals. Some basketball fans considered her to be a breakout star in this year's NCAA Women's March Madness tournament.

What Konaté can't do is play basketball in her own country, including for the French national team during the Paris Olympics. And that's because she wears a hijab.

The International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the Geneva, Switzerland-based organization that governs the sport worldwide, in 2017 overturned a global ban on the headscarves worn by some Muslim women.France's domestic version of that body, the French Federation of Basketball (FFBB), has not followed suit, opting instead to apply the country's laws on secularism that ban the wearing of symbols or clothing that express a religious affiliation in public schools and other institutions linked to the state.

Athletes like Konaté say it's had a deleterious effect on their basketball careers.

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"The context in France makes me nervous," Konaté, 23, said last month in a Zoom call with reporters, coaches and representatives from human rights groups who have been trying to get hijab bans in France in soccer, basketball and volleyball, at both professional and amateur levels, overturned.

"It's very frustrating to be excluded from representing my country or just being able to play basketball simply because of my religious identity as a Muslim woman who chooses to wear hijab," Konaté said.

"I can't fully express my faith and pursue my athletic aspiration."

Activists say France's hijabs ban are not simply discriminatory. They are also effectively preventing Muslim women and girls from fully participating in sports, for recreation or as a career, and this exclusion can negatively impact their lives, including their mental and physical health.

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"Who are we trying to erase when we say that you can't represent France while being visibly Muslim?" said Hélène Bâ, a French basketball player and human rights lawyer, who participated in the call with Konaté by pre-recording a video message that was played over Zoom.

Bâ is the co-founder of Basket Pour Toutes − Basketball For All − a collective that has been pushing the International Olympic Committee and International Basketball Federation help overturn France’s hijab ban. It was one of 11 rights groups who wrote to the IOC President Thomas Bach in June asking him to intervene on the issue.

"It is a clear violation of the Olympic Charter values and provisions," Bâ said of the ban.

"It is also an infringement on our fundamental rights and freedoms. It violates our freedom of conscience and religion and our rights to participate in sport. It reinforces gender and racial stereotypes, and it feeds the anti-Muslim hate that already pervades parts of French society."

Konaté acknowledged that her selection for France's Olympic basketball team wasn't a shoe-in. However, she pointed out that before the hijab ban came into effect she played for the French under-18 national team, with whom she won two silver medals and one gold. "I don't know if I'm good enough, to be honest. I will never be able to answer that. I've never had the opportunity actually to be part of the team."

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Activists meanwhile say that members of sports clubs in France aren't technically subject to the country's laws on neutrality. They also allege that it is prone to being enforced selectively.

Timothée Gauthiérot, a French basketball coach and Basket Pour Toutes co-founder, said that he often sees Sikh basketball players in France wearing turbans who haven't faced the hijab bans Muslim players do.

Gauthiérot said the bans have resulted in fewer girls on the court and that if the situation doesn't change he expects teams to have difficulties in recruiting new players with the result that some clubs will have to shut down.

"Maybe we won't be able to measure the full impact of this ban for two, three, five, ten years," Gauthiérot said. "But we can still already feel it. Some girls have stopped playing sports."

In response to the letter sent to the IOC's Bach by Basket Pour Toutes and other rights groups the IOC said that in general athletes were free to wear a hijab, veil and headscarf in the Olympic Village and in Olympic venues but that during competitions the "technical rules" set by national sports federations applied.

The IOC said that "elite athletes competing for French national teams are considered civil servants. This means they must respect the principles of secularism and neutrality." The IOC's letter further added that it knew of only one case of a hijab-wearing athlete competing in Paris for France who was impacted by the ban. It said that case had been "resolved to the satisfaction of everyone," without offering further details.

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A representative for the French Federation of Basketball did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on the ban's impact on French female basketball players or the sport's popularity.

France's ministry of sports also did not immediately return a comment request on those points or a request for information about the Olympic athlete referred to by the IOC in its letter.

After the publication of this story, it said in a statement that "France protects the freedom of expression, conscience and religion of every individual, including the athletes of its national teams." It said there is no general ban on wearing the hijab on sports fields in France but that athletes selected to its national teams are considered "participating in the exercise of a public service," and thus subject to its laws on secularism.

Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, an American former NCAA basketball player who led the overturn of the FIBA hijab ban in 2017 and also participated in the Zoom call with Konaté, urged her fellow athletes not to give up in the face of the ban.

"Diablo, I'm sorry," said Abdul-Qaadir on the call, addressing Konaté. "To all the other sisters over in France, I'm sorry. The only thing that I can really say − that I feel like I should say − is they can bar us from their organizations and their governing bodies. They can have a say in what they want. They can't stop us from playing."