Czech President Milos Zeman has called for a ban on the Burka-inspired Burkini swimwear in the country. He described the Islamic swimwear as unhygienic and saw no necessity for allowing the Sharia-compliant full-body female swimsuit in the Czech Republic. “There is no reason to wear Arabic attire in Czech swimming pools,” President Zeman told a local newspaper in an interview.

Austrian newspaper Heute reported:

[President] Milos Zeman called for banning the Burkini in an interview with the newspaper Blesk. He could not understand, why the full-body suits should be allowed. “Seen from an elementary hygienic point of view, you never know what mess these textiles might contain,” the President said.

When it was brought to his notice that the Burkinis are made up of the same fabric as the other bathing suits, Zeman merely said that he is not an expert in swimsuits, but “there is no reason to wear Arabic attire in Czech swimming pools.”

Last summer, many towns and communities in France’s coastal regions barred Burkini-clad women from entering the beaches. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, supported such a ban, saying, “France does not lock away a woman’s body, France does not hide half of its population under the fallacious and hateful pretext that the other half fears it will be tempted.”

Even France’s conservative Prime Minister Manuel Valls weighed in on the issue. “[Burkini] is the expression of a political project, a counter-society, based notably on the enslavement of women.” Valls noted last year.

Left-wing activist groups such as the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) launched a nationwide campaign and took the coastal city councils to court. The ban was finally repealed by France’s Supreme Court.

Despite the setback in France, the struggle against the segregationist Burqa and other forms of full-face Islamic veils continues throughout Europe. Apart from the Czech Republic, Hungary too has taken steps to ban the Burkini from public swimming pools.