Finland's Supreme Court upholds police use of force to remove hijabs for ID photos

The Finnish Supreme Court (KKO) issued an advisory ruling confirming that police were authorized to employ force to strip hijab scarves from two asylum-seeking women during a 2017 registration at the Hämeenlinna police station. The women, citing religious reasons, refused to remove the scarves and requested to be photographed at the Helsinki station where they had previously been photographed with the scarves on. When they became confrontational, officers separated them, physically removed the scarves, and used the least intrusive force necessary to complete the photographs.

The court held that the requirement for unobstructed facial images is a valid societal objective and that the officers' actions complied with legal standards. Earlier courts had acquitted the officers and a commissioner of alleged misconduct, and the Supreme Court affirmed those decisions despite one dissenting legal adviser.