Discriminatory behavior or WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Discriminatory behavior can have different forms that are described in the Antidiscrimination Law:

• Direct discrimination

Direct discrimination based on religious belief happens when a person is treated unfavorably or less favorably because of their religious beliefs or non-belief. An example could be an owner of a private clinic who turns down a candidate for the position of doctor-gynecologist simply because of the suspicion that the candidate is a faithful catholic who might refuse to perform abortions.

• Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination can be any directive, decision, incentive or frequently used procedure that without any objective reason disqualifies a person or group of people, even though it may seem apparent at first that it is not directed against anyone. For example, there can be internal directives of a hypermarket or bank that requires employees to wear a uniform and does not allow for the wearing of headwear. Such a rule automatically disqualifies people obliged by their religion to wear headwear, especially Muslim women. There is no other reasonable explanation of this requirement except that some specific style of visage is preferred by the firm’s headquarters. However, this is just a weak argument to justify unequal treatment.

• Harassment

According to the Slovak Antidiscrimination Law, harassment is one form of discrimination. Harassment occurs when someone treats another person unpleasantly, offensively, or in a disregarding way, because that someone maintains a position of power or the authority to decide important things in the life of this person. An example would be the negative treatment of a churchman by his priest in their religious community only because he dared to criticize the way his priest handles with money from charity.

• Incentive and sedition to discrimination; unjustifiable sanction

The law also prohibits any action working as an incentive or sedition to discrimination. To order a discriminating act or persuade someone to discriminate against someone else is against the law. The law also protects against any unjustifiable sanction that might be cast upon a person when filing a discrimination complaint with the appropriate office, appealing to court with a suit, or testifying in favor of somebody who was discriminated against.

Enforced laws can also discriminate, as in the example of a law governing identity cards which prescribes how a person should look in an official photograph for documents. According to this law, a person must be photographed without headgear. In this case, Muslim women are discriminated against because covering their hair represents their bond to their religious persuasion and still they must appear in official pictures with hair uncovered. There is no objective reason for such a restriction since the Muslim woman in question most likely always wears headgear, and therefore it is her most usual appearance. Furthermore, the same law allows catholic nuns to be covered in their traditional dress when in official pictures. Concluding from these examples, such law treats nuns and Muslim women - who both wear headgear for religious reasons - in a different manner.