Islamic dress in Europe
Encyclopedia
Islamic dress in Europe, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam
in western Europe
. In several countries the adherence to hijab
(an Arabic noun meaning "to cover") has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban. The Dutch
government has decided to introduce a ban on face-covering clothing, popularly described as the "burqa ban", although it does not only apply to the Afghan-model burqa
. Other countries are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, boushiya, or niqab
; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf
. (Some countries already have laws banning the wearing of mask
s in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face). The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil
itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.
Although the Balkans
and Eastern Europe
have indigenous Muslim populations, most Muslims in western Europe are members of immigrant communities. The issue of Islamic dress is linked with issues of immigration
and the position of Islam in western society. European Commissioner Franco Frattini said in November 2006, that he did not favour a ban on the burqa. This is apparently the first official statement on the issue of prohibition of Islamic dress from the European Commission
, the executive of the European Union
. The reasons given for prohibition vary. Legal bans on face-covering clothing are often justified on security grounds, as an anti-terrorism
measure.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
sees Islam as incompatible with Western
values, at least in its present form. She advocates the values of 'Enlightenment
liberalism
', including secularism
and equality of women
. For her, the burqa or chador are both a symbol of religious obscurantism
and the oppression of women. Western Enlightenment values, in her view, require prohibition, regardless of whether a woman has freely chosen Islamic dress. Islamic dress is also seen as a symbol of the existence of parallel societies (German: Parallelgesellschaft), and the failure of integration
: in 2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair
described it as a "mark of separation". Visible symbols of a non-Christian culture conflict with the national identity
in European states, which assumes a shared culture. Proposals for a ban may be linked to other related cultural prohibitions: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders
proposed a ban on hijab
s, in Islamic school
s, in new mosques, and in non-western immigration.
In France and Turkey, the emphasis is on the secular nature of the state
, and the symbolic nature of the Islamic dress, and bans apply at state institutions (courts, civil service
) and in state-funded education. These bans also cover Islamic headscarves, which in some other countries are seen as less controversial, although law court staff in the Netherlands are also forbidden to wear Islamic headscarves on grounds of 'state neutrality'. An apparently less politicised argument is that in specific professions (teaching), a ban on "veils" (niqab
) is justified, since face-to-face communication and eye contact is required. This argument has featured prominently in judgements
in Britain and the Netherlands, after students or teachers were banned from wearing face-covering clothing. Public and political response to such prohibition proposals is complex, since by definition they mean that the government decides on individual clothing. Some non-Muslims, who would not be affected by a ban, see it as an issue of civil liberties
, as a slippery slope
leading to further restrictions on private life. A public opinion poll in London showed that 75 percent of Londoners support "the right of all persons to dress in accordance with their religious beliefs". In another poll in the United Kingdom by Ipsos MORI
, 61 percent agreed that "Muslim women are segregating themselves" by wearing a veil, yet 77 percent thought they should have the right to wear it.
measure. However, the public controversy is wider, and may be indicative of polarisation
between Muslims and western European societies.
For some critics, Islamic dress is an issue of value conflicts and the Clash of Civilizations
. These critics - prominent among them is Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- see Islam as incompatible with Western
values, at least in its present form. They advocate the values of 'Enlightenment
liberalism
', including secularism
and equality of women
. For them, the burqa or chador are both a symbol of religious obscurantism
and the oppression of women. Western Enlightenment values, in their view, require prohibition, regardless of whether a woman has freely chosen Islamic dress. A more extreme, related view is that freely chosen Islamic dress is a declaration of allegiance to radical Islamism
, and the wearers are enemies of western society, if not terrorists.
Islamic dress is also seen as a symbol of the existence of parallel societies (German: Parallelgesellschaft), and the failure of integration
: in 2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair
described it as a "mark of separation". Visible symbols of a non-western culture conflict with the national identity
in European states, which assumes a shared (non-religious) culture. Proposals for a ban may be linked to other related cultural prohibitions: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders
proposed a ban on Hijab
, on Islamic school
s, on new mosques, and on non-western immigration.
In France
and Turkey
, the emphasis is on the secular nature of the state
, and the symbolic nature of the Islamic dress, and bans apply at state institutions (courts, civil service
) and in state-funded education. These bans also cover Islamic headscarves, which in some other countries are seen as less controversial, although law court staff in the Netherlands are also forbidden to wear Islamic headscarves on grounds of 'state neutrality'.
An apparently less politicised argument is that in specific professions (teaching), a ban on "veils" (niqab
) is justified, since face-to-face communication and eye contact is required. This argument has featured prominently in judgments
in Britain and the Netherlands, after students or teachers were banned from wearing face-covering clothing.
Public and political response to such prohibition proposals is complex, since by definition they mean that the government decides on individual clothing. Some non-Muslims, who would not be affected by a ban, see it as an issue of civil liberties
, as a slippery slope
leading to further restrictions on private life. A public opinion poll in London showed that 75 percent of Londoners support "the right of all persons to dress in accordance with their religious beliefs". In another poll in the United Kingdom by Ipsos MORI
, 61 percent agreed that "Muslim women are segregating themselves" by wearing a veil, yet 77 percent thought they should have the right to wear it.
and burqa. The town of Maaseik
was the first to implement a ban in October 2004. Khadija El Ouazzani, spouse of Belgian-born Khalid Bouloudo, considered by the Belgian authorities as the Belgian coordinator of the terrorist Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
, was fined €75 in April 2005 under the by-law for wearing a burqa. In 2006, a local police court upheld the ban and the fine. According to mayor Jan Creemers (Flemish Christian Democrats
), 5 or 6 women in Maaseik had "caused feelings of insecurity" by wearing a burqa, and he had received complaints about them. He personally warned the women to stop. After that, only El Ouazzani continued to wear the burqa, and the by-law was activated.
In late 2004, at Creemers request, Marino Keulen
, Flemish-Liberal
interior minister in the Flemish government
, created a standard prohibition for burqas, and sent it to all 308 municipalities in Flanders
. The regulation states that persons on the public street and in public buildings must be identifiable at all times, "to protect the social order, which allows a harmonious process of human activities". It prohibits covering the forehead, the cheeks, the eyes, the ears, the nose and the chin. Carnival
, Sinterklaas
, and Father Christmas
are exempt. According to Keulen:
All municipalities can choose if they want to adopt the regulation: six have done so. In August 2006, mayor Creemers called for a national ban. The anti-immigrant and separatist
party Vlaams Belang
, formerly Vlaams Blok
, had earlier advocated a ban at Flemish level, and locally in Antwerp. Although Vlaams Belang is excluded from power in Antwerp, by a coalition of all other parties, the ban was adopted. It was first applied in 2005, when a woman was fined because only her eyes were visible.
On 31 March 2010 the Belgian Chamber Committee on the Interior
unanimously approved legislation instating a nation-wide ban on wearing the burqa in public. The proposal was accepted by the Chamber of Representatives on 27 April 2010 with only two abstentions from Flemish Socialist MPs.
A law was finally voted by both federal parliamentary chambers on 28 April 2011, as the parliamentary process had been interrupted by elections in June 2010. One Flemish Green MP voted against, two French-speaking Green MPs abstained.
Amnesty International
Brussels has criticized the proposed legislation, stating that it is "being presented as an act to combat discrimination against women, whereas it is an act of discrimination in itself". Also, the BBC estimate that "Only around 30 women wear this kind of veil in Belgium, out of a Muslim population of around half a million."
-clad journalist was able to pass unchecked through security at Copenhagen airport
, the government stressed to the airports the need for passengers to show their faces.
In 2006 Asmaa Abdol-Hamid
caused much debate when she hosted a TV show on DR2
wearing a hijab
. The controversy continued the following year when she announced she would be running for parliament. Member of Parliament
Søren Krarup
, of the Danish People's Party
, questioned whether wearing a hijab in parliament was constitutional and said the headscarf is a totalitarian symbol
, comparable to the Nazi swastika
or the communist hammer and sickle
.
In April 2007 the Odense
city council asked the Minister for Family and Consumer Affairs of Denmark
to rule on a case in which a Muslim woman refused to remove her veil for her job as a family care worker. A majority in parliament was ready to give employers the right to ban Muslim niqab
and burka veils for employees.
In May 2008, the Danish government decided that judges in courts should strive for religious and political neutrality, and that consequently they would no longer be allowed to wear visible religious symbols, including crucifix
es, kippas and head scarves.
bans all clothing which constitutes an ostensible religious symbol from government-operated schools. It is typically justified as a measure to ensure the secularism and religious neutrality of the state
– the principle of Laïcité
. In December, 2003, President Jacques Chirac
supported a new law to explicitly forbid any "visible sign of religious affiliation", in the spirit of laïcité. The law was passed by the French parliament in March 2004.
The law forbids the wearing of any "ostensible" religious articles by students, but does not cite any item; yet, ministerial instructions appear to target the Islamic veil, the Jewish kippa, and large Christian crosses. Instructions permit discreet signs of faith, such as small crosses, Stars of David
, and hands of Fatima
. The law does not apply to parents or to students attending universities. However, teachers and other school personnel are also prohibited to display their religious affiliation on the basis of "public service neutrality". Similar policies are occasionally applied in other state organizations, such as personnel working in public hospitals.
The French controversy primarily relates to the Islamic veil as a symbol
of religion that challenges Laïcité
, or of female subservience, and only secondarily to practical factors such as face-to-face communication, or security risks. The 2004 law says nothing about the wearing of Islamic dress in public (on the street), nor about wearing religious signs in higher education or private education establishments.
In 2009, the issue has not receded with further calls by some government ministers for a more widespread enquiry on the implications of liberty, subservience and the veil with regards to public life.
On 22 June 2009, the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that burqas are "not welcome" in France, commenting that "In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," The French National Assembly appointed 32 lawmakers from right and left-wing parties on a six-month fact-finding mission to look at ways of restricting its use. A imam Hassen Chalghoumi backed the ban and he was threatened. On 26 January 2010, the group delivered its report, which had been agreed by six votes to six (the chair's vote in favour being decisive) with twenty abstentions. The report says that women should not be allowed to wear the burqa when accessing public services.
It is now illegal to wear the burqa in public in France. Fines are 150 euro for women wearing it and 30,000 euro for men forcing their wives to wear it, with up to one year in prison. The law was passed in the Senate by 246 votes to 1. The first fine was issued on 22 September 2011.
Eight of Germany's 16 states contain restrictions on wearing the hijab: first Baden-Württemberg
, then Bavaria
, Hesse
, Lower Saxony
, the Saarland
, Bremen
, North Rhine-Westphalia
and Berlin. The city-state of Berlin banned all religious symbols in public institutions, including the Christian crucifix
and the Jewish yarmulke.
Five of these states that ban religious clothing, contain an exception for Christian symbols and clothing: Baden-Württemberg, Saarland, Hesse, Bavaria, and North Rhine-Westphalia. In Baden-Württemberg, the state prohibits Muslim teachers from wearing the headscarf, but allows teachers to wear Christian clothing, such as the nun's habit. The state courts upheld an appeal against the ban by several Muslim teachers, on the grounds of religious discrimination, since Catholic nun
s are allowed to teach in full religious habit
. The state government has appealed the decision. The regulation in North Rhine-Westphalia is similar to that in Baden-Württemberg. Bavaria also allows the nun's habit, while banning the Muslim headscarf.
Education in Germany is the responsibility of the individual states
, which each have their own education ministry. In September 2003, the German Federal Constitutional Court
(Bundesverfassungsgericht) ruled that the states could ban the wearing of Islamic headscarves by female teachers, and that this would not infringe the constitutional protection of freedom of religion
. However, a ban could only be implemented by a state law, and not by administrative decisions.
In one incident involving Islamic dress in Germany, two 18-year old students, one Turkish and one Kurdish, appeared at a school in Bonn
in a burqa
; they were suspended for "disturbing the peace." The German Finance Minister cancelled a visit to the school, and the two were investigated by the intelligence service, who suspected them of contacts with the controversial King Fahd Academy in Bonn. The incident illustrates the sensitivity in Germany over Islamic dress, especially in schools. It led the Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries
to call for nationwide standard school uniform
s (itself a sensitive issue in Germany because of the association with the Nazi
Hitler Youth
and the East German Free German Youth
).
In 2004 the then President of Germany
, Johannes Rau
, spoke on the 'headscarf issue' and the nature of the German state, as compared to the officially secular
French state:
In Germany women in burqas or chadors are forbidden to drive motor vehicles for reasons of road safety. The Federal Transport Ministry confirmed that a de facto
ban already exists.
In 2006 Ekin Deligöz
, a Turkish-born woman parliamentarian, triggered an uproar by calling on fellow Turkish German women to take off their scarves as a way to show their willingness to integrate in German society.
Naime Çakir, a Muslim activist in Germany, raises other concerns related to headscarves in that banning them in fact increases discrimination of Muslim women and aggravates their integration into the modern society by making it harder for them to find a job and forcing them into an acute conflict between family and society, which places a much more disastrous burden on Muslim women than on Muslim men (see namus
and "honor killing
" articles). Naime states that for women, education and occupation are more important for emancipation than external attributes of clothing.
, a country where the population is traditionally Catholic
. The Islamic veil has become a national political issue, usually in combination with other Islam-related issues, such as new mosque
s, and the teaching of the Qur'an
in schools. The anti-immigration and separatist Lega Nord has focussed recent campaigns on prohibition of the burqa, although as with the Party for Freedom
in the Netherlands, the wider issue is immigration. After local anti-burqa campaigns, several municipalities imposed a ban, but these have been suspended by Regional Administrative Tribunals. The Regional Administrative Tribunal of Friuli-Venezia Giulia
, suppressed, for largely technical reasons, bans imposed by a municipal government. Use of the law 152/1975 – which prohibits the use of motorcycle helmets to evade identification – cannot be extended to cover the veil or burqa.
banned the headscarf in schools in late 2009 because Kosovo
is a secular country. This provoked protests by about 5,000 people in the capital Pristina
in June 2010.
announced in November 2006 that the Netherlands will introduce legislation to ban face-covering clothing in public. Although a ban was publicly debated earlier, the legislation results directly from a motion tabled in the Dutch House of Representatives by the anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders
, calling upon the cabinet to introduce it. The cabinet proposals was delayed because of concerns about conflict with freedom of religion
. The Third Balkenende cabinet
thought that these issues are no longer an obstacle to legislation. The proposal was condemned by Muslim organisations.
In the November 2006 general election
, Wilders' Party for Freedom
won 9 seats (out of 150): a complete ban on the burqa and a ban Islamic headscarves in the civil service
and schools is part of its platform, but all other parties refuse to include it in a coalition. A group of Muslim women organised a pro-burqa demonstration at the newly elected parliament in The Hague
, on 30 November 2006. The demonstration attracted national media attention, despite having only 20 participants.
Following the 2006 election, the new cabinet
has not taken a final decision on whether to introduce a ban, and gave conflicting signals. A February 2007 opinion poll indicated that 66 percent support a ban and 32 percent oppose it.
Malaysia protested against the proposed ban soon after it was announced in 2006. Foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar
called it a discriminatory treatment of Muslims, and said it infringed freedom of choice. The Islamic headscarf tudung is a political issue in Malaysia itself. According to the UNHCHR, female students in Malaysia itself are pressured to wear the tudung, and it is compulsory for female shop workers in Kelantan
, while Malaysian politicians have protested against its prohibition in public schools in Singapore
. According to memo leaked to the Algemeen Dagblad
, the Netherlands foreign ministry has warned of a possible controversy, similar to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
.
The proposed legislation in the Netherlands applies nationally. Earlier, schools and other institutions had enforced their own bans on Islamic dress, although usually not on the Islamic headscarf. Employers also have their own policies. Cases of dismissal or exclusion from school are sometimes handled by the Netherlands Equality Commission, creating de facto
national guidelines on what constitutes discrimination
. In Amsterdam, school policies attracted media attention after an incident in 2003. A higher vocational college, banned three students for wearing the niqab
. One was removed by police when she tried to enter the school wearing the niqab: the school regulations are legally enforceable because unauthorised entry is trespass
. The students appealed to the Equality Commission, which ruled (in March 2003) in favour of the school. The school justified the ban on the grounds that the niqab "hindered eye contact, which testifies to mutual respect". The Commission agreed with the school, indicating that the educational necessity of contact and communication within the school building overrode the religious-freedom aspects. The education minister, Maria van der Hoeven
, of the Christian-Democratic party CDA
, publicly approved the Commission decision. The Amsterdam CDA subsequently called for a national ban on chador, burqa and niqab in schools, partly on the grounds that they conflicted with common national values.
The cities of Amsterdam
and Utrecht
have proposed cutting social security benefit to unemployed women wearing a burqa, on the grounds that it makes them unemployable in a predominantly non-Muslim country.
and niqab
in public places was eventually proposed in the Norwegian Parliament by the Progress Party
. Before the formal proposal was made, a ban had been supported by figures such as the Labour Party
Spokesperson on Immigration Issues, Lise Christoffersen
, as well as several individual politicians from both opposition and government parties. When the proposal was up for consideration in May, it was however rejected by all parties in the Justice Committee except for the Progress Party. Minister of Justice Knut Storberget
had earlier claimed there to be a "great danger" that a general ban on "wholly covering clothing" could conflict with Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Per-Willy Amundsen
of the Progress Party in response claimed that the government was increasingly "hiding themselves behind international conventions" in questions regarding immigration and integration, in order to avoid tougher political discussions that divided the government.
Mayor Biel Serra of the town of Sa Pobla said Monday night's vote was not about cultural or religious discrimination but rather an issue of public safety and having people show their faces so they can be identified.
He told the AP Tuesday the ban also applies to other face-covering headgear like ski masks.
Sa Pobla joins a handful of other Spanish towns who have enacted some form of ban on body-covering burqas or face-covering niqabs. Biel said the two women in Sa Pobla wore the latter
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/06/another-spanish-town-bans-burqa-in-public/#ixzz1XDHeXm6u.
A 2010 survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that a clear majority of Spanish people support banning the burka.
declared himself to be against a ban on veils in January 2010, saying "legislation shouldn’t lead to certain women being isolated even more from Swedish society". Coalition partner Centre Party
also declared being against a ban, describing the wearing of head-to-toe veils as "a rarely occurring problem" that is "not something that should be solved through legislation". Opposition leader Mona Sahlin
rejected the idea of such a law as well.
in 1923. Atatürk saw headscarves as backward-looking and an obstacle to his campaign to secularize and modernize the new Turkish Republic. (The fez, worn by men, was banned.) Kemalist ideology continues to emphasize secularism, despite the majority of Turks being Muslims.
Until the 1960's, female students or public servants wearing headscarves were not seen in Turkey. In 1968, a university student, Hatice Babacan, refused to remove her headscarf and from then onwards, although there was not a uniformly applied ban, some problems began to arise for students wearing headscarves at universities.
With the rise of the Islamic movement in Turkey in the 1970's and early 1980's, the number of university students wearing headscarves increased substantially and in 1984, the first widespread application of headscarf ban came into effect at the universities, but throughout 1980's and 1990's, the ban was not uniformly enforced and many students were able to graduate, albeit with lots of difficulties, and begin their professional careers without compromising on their headscarves. After the so-called "28 February process" in 1997, the ban on headscarves and other Islamic coverings were taken to such extremes that even some hospitals refused to care for patients wearing headscarves. The headscarf ban in public spaces, including schools and universities (public and private), courts of law, government offices and other official institutions, is only for students, workers and public servants. Hence, mothers of pupils or visitors have no problems at all entering the primary schools, but they would not be able to work as teachers. Similarly, at the courts of law, the ban only involves judges, attorneys, lawyers and other workers. Wearing headscarves in photos on official documents like licenses, passports, and university enrollment documents is prohibited.
In 1998, a Turkish student was banned for wearing a headscarf at Istanbul University
. In 2000, Nuray Bezirgan, a Turkish student, wore a headscarf at her college final exams. A Turkish court sentenced her to six months jail for "obstructing the education of others". The European Court of Human Rights
upheld the ban in 2004, saying the rules on dress were "necessary" and did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights
. In October 2006, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the university ban again, rejecting a complaint filed by another Turkish university student.
In October 2006, Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer
refused to allow Justice and Development Party
(AKP) politicians whose wives wear the headscarves, at a ball marking Turkish independence, saying it would "compromise" and undermine the secular state founded by Kemal Atatürk.
On February 7, 2008, the Turkish Parliament passed an amendment to the constitution, allowing women to wear the headscarf in Turkish universities, arguing that many women would not seek an education if they could not wear the hijab. The decision was met with powerful opposition and protests from secularists
. On June 5, 2008, the Constitutional Court of Turkey reinstated the ban on constitutional grounds of the secularity of the state. Headscarves had become a focal point of the conflict between the ruling AKP party and the secularist establishment, which includes the courts, universities, and army. The ruling was widely seen as a victory for Turks who claim this maintains Turkey's separation of state and religion.
Jack Straw
initiated a nation-wide controversy on "the veil" by criticising its use in 2006. Straw said he would prefer to see no veils: "Yes. It needs to be made clear I am not talking about being proscriptive but with all the caveats, yes, I would rather."
In 2010, Jack Straw publicly apologised over his 2006 comments, stating "If I had realised the scale of publicity that they [his comments] received in October 2006, I wouldn’t have made them and I am sorry that it has caused problems and I offer that apology."
The legal status of Islamic dress in schools was clarified by the Shabina Begum case
, where the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords ruled that freedom to manifest religious beliefs was not absolute, and could be restricted. Conservative columnist Theodore Dalrymple, noting that Shabina Begum was represented by the Prime Minister's wife Cherie Blair
, claims that the judgement was a political one, a concession to Muslim opinion offended by the campaign against Islamist terrorism
.
In the Aishah Azmi
case, an employment tribunal
held that a school could refuse to employ a veiled teacher (wearing the niqab
). Government ministers intervened in the employment tribunal case, supporting the school. This case provoked Prime Minister Tony Blair
to comment that the veil was a "mark of separation", and minister Phil Woolas
demanded that Azmi be sacked, accusing her of "denying the right of children to a full education". The school subsequently sacked her.
In another case, a lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not represent a client because, he said, he could not hear her.
Veils have also been accused of causing problems in the fight against crime:
A recent YouGov
survey said that 67% of British people questioned wanted full-face veils outlawed.
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
in western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
. In several countries the adherence to hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
(an Arabic noun meaning "to cover") has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban. The Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
government has decided to introduce a ban on face-covering clothing, popularly described as the "burqa ban", although it does not only apply to the Afghan-model burqa
Burqa
A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...
. Other countries are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, boushiya, or niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf
Headscarf
Headscarves or head scarves are scarves covering most or all of the top of a woman's hair and her head. Headscarves may be worn for a variety of purposes, such as for warmth, for sanitation, for fashion or social distinction; with religious significance, to hide baldness, out of modesty, or other...
. (Some countries already have laws banning the wearing of mask
Mask
A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes...
s in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face). The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil
Veil
A veil is an article of clothing, worn almost exclusively by women, that is intended to cover some part of the head or face.One view is that as a religious item, it is intended to show honor to an object or space...
itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.
Although the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
have indigenous Muslim populations, most Muslims in western Europe are members of immigrant communities. The issue of Islamic dress is linked with issues of immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
and the position of Islam in western society. European Commissioner Franco Frattini said in November 2006, that he did not favour a ban on the burqa. This is apparently the first official statement on the issue of prohibition of Islamic dress from the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
, the executive of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
. The reasons given for prohibition vary. Legal bans on face-covering clothing are often justified on security grounds, as an anti-terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
measure.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Magan Ali is a Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer, politician who strongly opposes circumcision and female genital cutting. She is the daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse and is a founder of the women's rights organisation the AHA...
sees Islam as incompatible with Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
values, at least in its present form. She advocates the values of 'Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
', including secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
and equality of women
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
. For her, the burqa or chador are both a symbol of religious obscurantism
Obscurantism
Obscurantism is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two, common, historical and intellectual, denotations: 1) restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the...
and the oppression of women. Western Enlightenment values, in her view, require prohibition, regardless of whether a woman has freely chosen Islamic dress. Islamic dress is also seen as a symbol of the existence of parallel societies (German: Parallelgesellschaft), and the failure of integration
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
: in 2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
described it as a "mark of separation". Visible symbols of a non-Christian culture conflict with the national identity
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
in European states, which assumes a shared culture. Proposals for a ban may be linked to other related cultural prohibitions: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
proposed a ban on hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
s, in Islamic school
Islamic school
Islamic school may refer to one of several things:* Madh'hab, an Islamic school of thought.* Madrasah, an Islamic educational institution...
s, in new mosques, and in non-western immigration.
In France and Turkey, the emphasis is on the secular nature of the state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
, and the symbolic nature of the Islamic dress, and bans apply at state institutions (courts, civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
) and in state-funded education. These bans also cover Islamic headscarves, which in some other countries are seen as less controversial, although law court staff in the Netherlands are also forbidden to wear Islamic headscarves on grounds of 'state neutrality'. An apparently less politicised argument is that in specific professions (teaching), a ban on "veils" (niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
) is justified, since face-to-face communication and eye contact is required. This argument has featured prominently in judgements
Employment tribunal
Employment Tribunals are tribunal non-departmental public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, redundancy payments and employment...
in Britain and the Netherlands, after students or teachers were banned from wearing face-covering clothing. Public and political response to such prohibition proposals is complex, since by definition they mean that the government decides on individual clothing. Some non-Muslims, who would not be affected by a ban, see it as an issue of civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
, as a slippery slope
Slippery slope
In debate or rhetoric, a slippery slope is a classic form of argument, arguably an informal fallacy...
leading to further restrictions on private life. A public opinion poll in London showed that 75 percent of Londoners support "the right of all persons to dress in accordance with their religious beliefs". In another poll in the United Kingdom by Ipsos MORI
MORI
Ipsos MORI is the second largest market research organisation in the United Kingdom, formed by a merger of Ipsos UK and MORI, two of the Britain's leading survey companies in October 2005...
, 61 percent agreed that "Muslim women are segregating themselves" by wearing a veil, yet 77 percent thought they should have the right to wear it.
Perspectives
The reasons given for prohibition vary. Legal bans on face-covering clothing are often justified on security grounds, as an anti-terrorismTerrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
measure. However, the public controversy is wider, and may be indicative of polarisation
Polarization (politics)
In politics, polarization is the process by which the public opinion divides and goes to the extremes. It can also refer to when the extreme factions of a political party gain dominance in a party. In either case moderate voices often lose power and influence as a consequence.-Definitions of...
between Muslims and western European societies.
For some critics, Islamic dress is an issue of value conflicts and the Clash of Civilizations
Clash of Civilizations
The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world....
. These critics - prominent among them is Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Magan Ali is a Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer, politician who strongly opposes circumcision and female genital cutting. She is the daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse and is a founder of the women's rights organisation the AHA...
- see Islam as incompatible with Western
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
values, at least in its present form. They advocate the values of 'Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
', including secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
and equality of women
Gender equality
Gender equality is the goal of the equality of the genders, stemming from a belief in the injustice of myriad forms of gender inequality.- Concept :...
. For them, the burqa or chador are both a symbol of religious obscurantism
Obscurantism
Obscurantism is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two, common, historical and intellectual, denotations: 1) restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the...
and the oppression of women. Western Enlightenment values, in their view, require prohibition, regardless of whether a woman has freely chosen Islamic dress. A more extreme, related view is that freely chosen Islamic dress is a declaration of allegiance to radical Islamism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
, and the wearers are enemies of western society, if not terrorists.
Islamic dress is also seen as a symbol of the existence of parallel societies (German: Parallelgesellschaft), and the failure of integration
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
: in 2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
described it as a "mark of separation". Visible symbols of a non-western culture conflict with the national identity
Nation-state
The nation state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a nation as a sovereign territorial unit. The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity...
in European states, which assumes a shared (non-religious) culture. Proposals for a ban may be linked to other related cultural prohibitions: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
proposed a ban on Hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
, on Islamic school
Islamic school
Islamic school may refer to one of several things:* Madh'hab, an Islamic school of thought.* Madrasah, an Islamic educational institution...
s, on new mosques, and on non-western immigration.
In France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, the emphasis is on the secular nature of the state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
, and the symbolic nature of the Islamic dress, and bans apply at state institutions (courts, civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
) and in state-funded education. These bans also cover Islamic headscarves, which in some other countries are seen as less controversial, although law court staff in the Netherlands are also forbidden to wear Islamic headscarves on grounds of 'state neutrality'.
An apparently less politicised argument is that in specific professions (teaching), a ban on "veils" (niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
) is justified, since face-to-face communication and eye contact is required. This argument has featured prominently in judgments
Employment tribunal
Employment Tribunals are tribunal non-departmental public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, redundancy payments and employment...
in Britain and the Netherlands, after students or teachers were banned from wearing face-covering clothing.
Public and political response to such prohibition proposals is complex, since by definition they mean that the government decides on individual clothing. Some non-Muslims, who would not be affected by a ban, see it as an issue of civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
, as a slippery slope
Slippery slope
In debate or rhetoric, a slippery slope is a classic form of argument, arguably an informal fallacy...
leading to further restrictions on private life. A public opinion poll in London showed that 75 percent of Londoners support "the right of all persons to dress in accordance with their religious beliefs". In another poll in the United Kingdom by Ipsos MORI
MORI
Ipsos MORI is the second largest market research organisation in the United Kingdom, formed by a merger of Ipsos UK and MORI, two of the Britain's leading survey companies in October 2005...
, 61 percent agreed that "Muslim women are segregating themselves" by wearing a veil, yet 77 percent thought they should have the right to wear it.
Albania
Albania has introduced draft legislation to ban the hijab in public schools. Additionally, use of the hijab is very uncommon in Albania.Belgium
Several Belgian municipalities have used municipal by-laws on face-covering clothing to ban public wearing of the niqabNiqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
and burqa. The town of Maaseik
Maaseik
Maaseik is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. The city is located on the river Meuse , bordering the Netherlands. The Maaseik municipality includes the town of Maaseik and the villages of Neeroeteren and Opoeteren...
was the first to implement a ban in October 2004. Khadija El Ouazzani, spouse of Belgian-born Khalid Bouloudo, considered by the Belgian authorities as the Belgian coordinator of the terrorist Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group or Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group is a Sunni Islamist terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda. It is sometimes referred to as GICM after its French name Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain...
, was fined €75 in April 2005 under the by-law for wearing a burqa. In 2006, a local police court upheld the ban and the fine. According to mayor Jan Creemers (Flemish Christian Democrats
Christian Democratic and Flemish
The Christian Democratic and Flemish is a political party of Belgium, formerly called Christian People's Party...
), 5 or 6 women in Maaseik had "caused feelings of insecurity" by wearing a burqa, and he had received complaints about them. He personally warned the women to stop. After that, only El Ouazzani continued to wear the burqa, and the by-law was activated.
In late 2004, at Creemers request, Marino Keulen
Marino Keulen
Marino Ghislainus Keulen is a Flemish politician and member of the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats party. He is a representative in the Flemish Parliament, and served in the Flemish Government of 2004-2009 as Minister of Home Affairs, Urban Policy, Housing and Civic Integration...
, Flemish-Liberal
Flemish Liberals and Democrats
' , commonly known as Open VLD and also simply as the VLD, is a Flemish liberal political party in Belgium, created in 1992 from the former Party for Freedom and Progress and a few other politicians from other parties. The party led the government for three cabinets under Guy Verhofstadt from 1999...
interior minister in the Flemish government
Flemish government
The Flemish Government is the executive branch of the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region. It consists of up to a maximum of eleven ministers, chosen by the Flemish Parliament...
, created a standard prohibition for burqas, and sent it to all 308 municipalities in Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
. The regulation states that persons on the public street and in public buildings must be identifiable at all times, "to protect the social order, which allows a harmonious process of human activities". It prohibits covering the forehead, the cheeks, the eyes, the ears, the nose and the chin. Carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...
, Sinterklaas
Sinterklaas
Sinterklaas is a traditional Winter holiday figure still celebrated today in the Low Countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as French Flanders and Artois...
, and Father Christmas
Father Christmas
Father Christmas is the name used in many English-speaking countries for a figure associated with Christmas. A similar figure with the same name exists in several other countries, including France , Spain , Brazil , Portugal , Italy , Armenia , India...
are exempt. According to Keulen:
- As Minister for Integration I respect culture tradition and belief, but wearing a burqa has nothing to do with religious belief, but with traditional dress in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Besides, wearing a burqa has an intimidating effect, and it can not be tolerated that Muslim women are excluded from society because they are isolated behind their burqa, and can't communicate with the world around them.
All municipalities can choose if they want to adopt the regulation: six have done so. In August 2006, mayor Creemers called for a national ban. The anti-immigrant and separatist
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...
party Vlaams Belang
Vlaams Belang
Vlaams Belang is a Belgian far-right political party in the Flemish Region and Brussels that advocates the independence of Flanders and strict limits on immigration, whereby immigrants would be obliged to adopt Flemish culture and language...
, formerly Vlaams Blok
Vlaams Blok
The Vlaams Blok was a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform. Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independence of Flanders. From its creation in 1978, it was the most notable militant right wing of the Flemish movement. Vlaams...
, had earlier advocated a ban at Flemish level, and locally in Antwerp. Although Vlaams Belang is excluded from power in Antwerp, by a coalition of all other parties, the ban was adopted. It was first applied in 2005, when a woman was fined because only her eyes were visible.
On 31 March 2010 the Belgian Chamber Committee on the Interior
Belgian Chamber Committee on the Interior
The Committee on the Interior, General Affairs and the Civil Service , more commonly referred to as the Committee on the Interior, is a standing committee of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. It is responsible for all matters related to the internal affairs of Belgium...
unanimously approved legislation instating a nation-wide ban on wearing the burqa in public. The proposal was accepted by the Chamber of Representatives on 27 April 2010 with only two abstentions from Flemish Socialist MPs.
A law was finally voted by both federal parliamentary chambers on 28 April 2011, as the parliamentary process had been interrupted by elections in June 2010. One Flemish Green MP voted against, two French-speaking Green MPs abstained.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Brussels has criticized the proposed legislation, stating that it is "being presented as an act to combat discrimination against women, whereas it is an act of discrimination in itself". Also, the BBC estimate that "Only around 30 women wear this kind of veil in Belgium, out of a Muslim population of around half a million."
Denmark
There is currently no ban on religious Islamic dress in Denmark. However, following an incident in which a burqaBurqa
A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...
-clad journalist was able to pass unchecked through security at Copenhagen airport
Copenhagen Airport
Copenhagen Airport is the main international airport serving Copenhagen, Denmark and the Oresund Region. It is located on the island of Amager, south of Copenhagen city centre, and west of Malmö city centre on the other side of the Oresund Bridge. The airport lies mainly in the municipality...
, the government stressed to the airports the need for passengers to show their faces.
In 2006 Asmaa Abdol-Hamid
Asmaa Abdol-Hamid
Asmaa Abdol-Hamid is an Arab-Danish social worker and politician living in Odense.- Family background :Abdol-Hamid is one of seven children. She was born in the United Arab Emirates to parents of Palestinian descent. Her father grew up in a Lebanese refugee camp. Her mother's family also lived...
caused much debate when she hosted a TV show on DR2
DR2
DR2 is a Danish television station. It is part of Danmarks Radio, the public service broadcasting company of Denmark.It was launched in 1996 as a satellite-/cable-only channel. This was highly controversial at the time, as it was considered close to a breach of public service principles that the...
wearing a hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
. The controversy continued the following year when she announced she would be running for parliament. Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Søren Krarup
Søren Krarup
Søren Krarup is a Danish pastor, writer, politician and Member of Parliament for the Danish People's Party from 2001....
, of the Danish People's Party
Danish People's Party
The Danish People's Party is a political party in Denmark which is frequently described as right-wing populist by political scientists and commentators. The party is led by Pia Kjærsgaard...
, questioned whether wearing a hijab in parliament was constitutional and said the headscarf is a totalitarian symbol
Totalitarian democracy
Totalitarian democracy is a term made famous by Israeli historian J. L. Talmon to refer to a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the...
, comparable to the Nazi swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
or the communist hammer and sickle
Hammer and sickle
The hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, a Communist party, or a Communist state. It features a hammer and a sickle overlapping each other. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them...
.
In April 2007 the Odense
Odense
The city of Odense is the third largest city in Denmark.Odense City has a population of 167,615 and is the main city of the island of Funen...
city council asked the Minister for Family and Consumer Affairs of Denmark
Minister for Family and Consumer Affairs of Denmark
Minister for Family and Consumer Affairs of Denmark was a political office in the Danish government created in August 2004 and worked primarily for families and with consumption-related topics. The main purpose of the ministry was to protect the interests of families in a wider sense...
to rule on a case in which a Muslim woman refused to remove her veil for her job as a family care worker. A majority in parliament was ready to give employers the right to ban Muslim niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
and burka veils for employees.
In May 2008, the Danish government decided that judges in courts should strive for religious and political neutrality, and that consequently they would no longer be allowed to wear visible religious symbols, including crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
es, kippas and head scarves.
France
The 2004 French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schoolsFrench law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools
The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public primary and secondary schools...
bans all clothing which constitutes an ostensible religious symbol from government-operated schools. It is typically justified as a measure to ensure the secularism and religious neutrality of the state
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
– the principle of Laïcité
Laïcité
French secularism, in French, laïcité is a concept denoting the absence of religious involvement in government affairs as well as absence of government involvement in religious affairs. French secularism has a long history but the current regime is based on the 1905 French law on the Separation of...
. In December, 2003, President Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
Jacques René Chirac is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 , and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the...
supported a new law to explicitly forbid any "visible sign of religious affiliation", in the spirit of laïcité. The law was passed by the French parliament in March 2004.
The law forbids the wearing of any "ostensible" religious articles by students, but does not cite any item; yet, ministerial instructions appear to target the Islamic veil, the Jewish kippa, and large Christian crosses. Instructions permit discreet signs of faith, such as small crosses, Stars of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
, and hands of Fatima
Hamsa
Hamsa or Khamsa can refer to:*Arabic "five, quintet"** Ḫamsa, a Near Eastern symbol often used as a protective amulet** a commonly used alternative name for the Panj Ganj or Quinary, ie quintet of Nizami's first five great epics*Sanskrit ...
. The law does not apply to parents or to students attending universities. However, teachers and other school personnel are also prohibited to display their religious affiliation on the basis of "public service neutrality". Similar policies are occasionally applied in other state organizations, such as personnel working in public hospitals.
The French controversy primarily relates to the Islamic veil as a symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
of religion that challenges Laïcité
Laïcité
French secularism, in French, laïcité is a concept denoting the absence of religious involvement in government affairs as well as absence of government involvement in religious affairs. French secularism has a long history but the current regime is based on the 1905 French law on the Separation of...
, or of female subservience, and only secondarily to practical factors such as face-to-face communication, or security risks. The 2004 law says nothing about the wearing of Islamic dress in public (on the street), nor about wearing religious signs in higher education or private education establishments.
In 2009, the issue has not receded with further calls by some government ministers for a more widespread enquiry on the implications of liberty, subservience and the veil with regards to public life.
On 22 June 2009, the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that burqas are "not welcome" in France, commenting that "In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," The French National Assembly appointed 32 lawmakers from right and left-wing parties on a six-month fact-finding mission to look at ways of restricting its use. A imam Hassen Chalghoumi backed the ban and he was threatened. On 26 January 2010, the group delivered its report, which had been agreed by six votes to six (the chair's vote in favour being decisive) with twenty abstentions. The report says that women should not be allowed to wear the burqa when accessing public services.
It is now illegal to wear the burqa in public in France. Fines are 150 euro for women wearing it and 30,000 euro for men forcing their wives to wear it, with up to one year in prison. The law was passed in the Senate by 246 votes to 1. The first fine was issued on 22 September 2011.
Germany
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
, then Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
, Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
, the Saarland
Saarland
Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...
, Bremen
Bremen (state)
The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is the smallest of Germany's 16 states. A more informal name, but used in some official contexts, is Land Bremen .-Geography:...
, North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
and Berlin. The city-state of Berlin banned all religious symbols in public institutions, including the Christian crucifix
Crucifix
A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....
and the Jewish yarmulke.
Five of these states that ban religious clothing, contain an exception for Christian symbols and clothing: Baden-Württemberg, Saarland, Hesse, Bavaria, and North Rhine-Westphalia. In Baden-Württemberg, the state prohibits Muslim teachers from wearing the headscarf, but allows teachers to wear Christian clothing, such as the nun's habit. The state courts upheld an appeal against the ban by several Muslim teachers, on the grounds of religious discrimination, since Catholic nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
s are allowed to teach in full religious habit
Religious habit
A religious habit is a distinctive set of garments worn by members of a religious order. Traditionally some plain garb recognisable as a religious habit has also been worn by those leading the religious eremitic and anachoritic life, although in their case without conformity to a particular uniform...
. The state government has appealed the decision. The regulation in North Rhine-Westphalia is similar to that in Baden-Württemberg. Bavaria also allows the nun's habit, while banning the Muslim headscarf.
Education in Germany is the responsibility of the individual states
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
, which each have their own education ministry. In September 2003, the German Federal Constitutional Court
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
The Federal Constitutional Court is a special court established by the Grundgesetz, the German basic law...
(Bundesverfassungsgericht) ruled that the states could ban the wearing of Islamic headscarves by female teachers, and that this would not infringe the constitutional protection of freedom of religion
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
. However, a ban could only be implemented by a state law, and not by administrative decisions.
In one incident involving Islamic dress in Germany, two 18-year old students, one Turkish and one Kurdish, appeared at a school in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
in a burqa
Burqa
A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...
; they were suspended for "disturbing the peace." The German Finance Minister cancelled a visit to the school, and the two were investigated by the intelligence service, who suspected them of contacts with the controversial King Fahd Academy in Bonn. The incident illustrates the sensitivity in Germany over Islamic dress, especially in schools. It led the Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries
Brigitte Zypries
Brigitte Zypries is a German politician. She was Federal Minister of Justice of Germany from 2002 to 2009. She is member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany .- Career :...
to call for nationwide standard school uniform
School uniform
A school uniform is an outfit—a set of standardized clothes—worn primarily for an educational institution. They are common in primary and secondary schools in various countries . When used, they form the basis of a school's dress code.Traditionally school uniforms have been largely subdued and...
s (itself a sensitive issue in Germany because of the association with the Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
and the East German Free German Youth
Free German Youth
The Free German Youth, also known as the FDJ , was the official socialist youth movement of the German Democratic Republic and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany....
).
In 2004 the then President of Germany
President of Germany
The President of the Federal Republic of Germany is the country's head of state. His official title in German is Bundespräsident . Germany has a parliamentary system of government and so the position of President is largely ceremonial...
, Johannes Rau
Johannes Rau
Johannes Rau was a German politician of the SPD. He was President of Germany from 1 July 1999 until 30 June 2004, and Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1978 to 1998.-Education and work:...
, spoke on the 'headscarf issue' and the nature of the German state, as compared to the officially secular
Laïcité
French secularism, in French, laïcité is a concept denoting the absence of religious involvement in government affairs as well as absence of government involvement in religious affairs. French secularism has a long history but the current regime is based on the 1905 French law on the Separation of...
French state:
- I fear that a headscarf ban will be the first step on the road to a laicistic state, which will prohibit religious signs and symbols in the public sphere. I don't want to see that happen. That is not my vision of our country, with its centuries of Christian influence.
In Germany women in burqas or chadors are forbidden to drive motor vehicles for reasons of road safety. The Federal Transport Ministry confirmed that a de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
ban already exists.
In 2006 Ekin Deligöz
Ekin Deligöz
Ekin Deligöz is a German politician of Turkish origin and a member of Alliance '90/The Greens. She currently serves as a member of the German Bundestag.- Life :...
, a Turkish-born woman parliamentarian, triggered an uproar by calling on fellow Turkish German women to take off their scarves as a way to show their willingness to integrate in German society.
Naime Çakir, a Muslim activist in Germany, raises other concerns related to headscarves in that banning them in fact increases discrimination of Muslim women and aggravates their integration into the modern society by making it harder for them to find a job and forcing them into an acute conflict between family and society, which places a much more disastrous burden on Muslim women than on Muslim men (see namus
Namus
Namus is the Arabic word of a concept of an ethical category, a virtue, in Middle Eastern patriarchal character...
and "honor killing
Honor killing
An honor killing or honour killing is the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the belief of the perpetrators that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family or community...
" articles). Naime states that for women, education and occupation are more important for emancipation than external attributes of clothing.
Italy
Immigration in the last two decades has introduced Islam as a second major religion in ItalyIslam in Italy
The history of Islam in Italy dates back to the 9th century, when wars of expansion by North African states brought Sicily and some regions in Peninsular Italy into the Ummah. There was Muslim presence in these parts of Italy from 828 to 1300...
, a country where the population is traditionally Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
. The Islamic veil has become a national political issue, usually in combination with other Islam-related issues, such as new mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
s, and the teaching of the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
in schools. The anti-immigration and separatist Lega Nord has focussed recent campaigns on prohibition of the burqa, although as with the Party for Freedom
Party for Freedom
The Party for Freedom is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2005 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man party in the House of Representatives, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It...
in the Netherlands, the wider issue is immigration. After local anti-burqa campaigns, several municipalities imposed a ban, but these have been suspended by Regional Administrative Tribunals. The Regional Administrative Tribunal of Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Friuli–Venezia Giulia is one of the twenty regions of Italy, and one of five autonomous regions with special statute. The capital is Trieste. It has an area of 7,858 km² and about 1.2 million inhabitants. A natural opening to the sea for many Central European countries, the region is...
, suppressed, for largely technical reasons, bans imposed by a municipal government. Use of the law 152/1975 – which prohibits the use of motorcycle helmets to evade identification – cannot be extended to cover the veil or burqa.
Kosovo
The government of KosovoGovernment of Kosovo
The Cabinet of Kosovo is the collection of Kosovo institutions that exercises executive authority in Kosovo. It is headed by the Prime Minister of Kosovo, and also includes the deputy prime ministers as well as various ministers.The Prime Minister is elected by the Assembly of the Republic...
banned the headscarf in schools in late 2009 because Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
is a secular country. This provoked protests by about 5,000 people in the capital Pristina
Pristina
Pristina, also spelled Prishtina and Priština is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous municipality and district....
in June 2010.
Netherlands
Immigration and Integration minister Rita VerdonkRita Verdonk
Maria Cornelia Frederika "Rita" Verdonk is a retired Dutch politician initially of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy until she was expelled in October 2007, she later formed her own party Proud of the Netherlands . She served as Minister for Integration and Immigration in Cabinets...
announced in November 2006 that the Netherlands will introduce legislation to ban face-covering clothing in public. Although a ban was publicly debated earlier, the legislation results directly from a motion tabled in the Dutch House of Representatives by the anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
, calling upon the cabinet to introduce it. The cabinet proposals was delayed because of concerns about conflict with freedom of religion
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance; the concept is generally recognized also to include the freedom to change religion or not to follow any...
. The Third Balkenende cabinet
Third Balkenende cabinet
The third Balkenende cabinet was formed on 7 July 2006 after a crisis in and the subsequent resignation of the second Balkenende cabinet. This demissionary minority cabinet of Christian Democratic Appeal and People's Party for Freedom and Democracy was negotiated by former prime minister Ruud...
thought that these issues are no longer an obstacle to legislation. The proposal was condemned by Muslim organisations.
In the November 2006 general election
Dutch general election, 2006
The General Election to the House of Representatives of the States-General of the Netherlands was held in the Netherlands on November 22, 2006. And followed the call for new elections after the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet....
, Wilders' Party for Freedom
Party for Freedom
The Party for Freedom is a Dutch right-wing political party. Founded in 2005 as the successor to Geert Wilders' one-man party in the House of Representatives, it won nine seats in the 2006 general election, making it the fifth largest party in parliament, and third largest opposition party. It...
won 9 seats (out of 150): a complete ban on the burqa and a ban Islamic headscarves in the civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
and schools is part of its platform, but all other parties refuse to include it in a coalition. A group of Muslim women organised a pro-burqa demonstration at the newly elected parliament in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, on 30 November 2006. The demonstration attracted national media attention, despite having only 20 participants.
Following the 2006 election, the new cabinet
Fourth Balkenende cabinet
The fourth Balkenende cabinet or Balkenende IV is the previous Dutch coalition cabinet formed by the political parties Christian Democratic Appeal , Labour Party , and ChristianUnion . The cabinet succeeded the third Balkenende cabinet following the 2006 election, and was installed by Queen Beatrix...
has not taken a final decision on whether to introduce a ban, and gave conflicting signals. A February 2007 opinion poll indicated that 66 percent support a ban and 32 percent oppose it.
Malaysia protested against the proposed ban soon after it was announced in 2006. Foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar
Syed Hamid Albar
Tan Sri Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar Albar , is a Malaysian politician and the former Malaysian Minister of Home Affairs. He is currently the chairman of the Land Public Transport Commission. He is also a member of the United Malays National Organisation , part of the ruling Barisan Nasional...
called it a discriminatory treatment of Muslims, and said it infringed freedom of choice. The Islamic headscarf tudung is a political issue in Malaysia itself. According to the UNHCHR, female students in Malaysia itself are pressured to wear the tudung, and it is compulsory for female shop workers in Kelantan
Kelantan
Kelantan is a state of Malaysia. The capital and royal seat is Kota Bharu. The Arabic honorific of the state is Darul Naim, ....
, while Malaysian politicians have protested against its prohibition in public schools in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. According to memo leaked to the Algemeen Dagblad
Algemeen Dagblad
The Algemeen Dagblad is a Dutch newspaper. Founded in Rotterdam in 1946, it currently has a daily circulation of 315,000. The newspaper is owned by AD NieuwsMedia, a joint venture between Wegener and PCM Uitgevers....
, the Netherlands foreign ministry has warned of a possible controversy, similar to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005...
.
The proposed legislation in the Netherlands applies nationally. Earlier, schools and other institutions had enforced their own bans on Islamic dress, although usually not on the Islamic headscarf. Employers also have their own policies. Cases of dismissal or exclusion from school are sometimes handled by the Netherlands Equality Commission, creating de facto
De facto
De facto is a Latin expression that means "concerning fact." In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established." It is commonly used in contrast to de jure when referring to matters of law, governance, or...
national guidelines on what constitutes discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
. In Amsterdam, school policies attracted media attention after an incident in 2003. A higher vocational college, banned three students for wearing the niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
. One was removed by police when she tried to enter the school wearing the niqab: the school regulations are legally enforceable because unauthorised entry is trespass
Trespass
Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels and trespass to land.Trespass to the person, historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, wounding, mayhem, and maiming...
. The students appealed to the Equality Commission, which ruled (in March 2003) in favour of the school. The school justified the ban on the grounds that the niqab "hindered eye contact, which testifies to mutual respect". The Commission agreed with the school, indicating that the educational necessity of contact and communication within the school building overrode the religious-freedom aspects. The education minister, Maria van der Hoeven
Maria van der Hoeven
Maria Josephina Arnoldina van der Hoeven is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal party. She is the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency since 1 September 2011....
, of the Christian-Democratic party CDA
Christian Democratic Appeal
The Christian Democratic Appeal is a centre-right Dutch Christian democratic political party. It suffered severe losses in the 2010 elections and fell from the first to the fourth place...
, publicly approved the Commission decision. The Amsterdam CDA subsequently called for a national ban on chador, burqa and niqab in schools, partly on the grounds that they conflicted with common national values.
The cities of Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
have proposed cutting social security benefit to unemployed women wearing a burqa, on the grounds that it makes them unemployable in a predominantly non-Muslim country.
Norway
While there is currently no ban on Islamic dress in Norway, the issue has in later years been widely discussed. In March 2010, a ban on the burqaBurqa
A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...
and niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
in public places was eventually proposed in the Norwegian Parliament by the Progress Party
Progress Party (Norway)
The Progress Party is a political party in Norway which identifies as conservative liberal and libertarian. The media has described it as conservative and right-wing populist...
. Before the formal proposal was made, a ban had been supported by figures such as the Labour Party
Norwegian Labour Party
The Labour Party is a social-democratic political party in Norway. It is the senior partner in the current Norwegian government as part of the Red-Green Coalition, and its leader, Jens Stoltenberg, is the current Prime Minister of Norway....
Spokesperson on Immigration Issues, Lise Christoffersen
Lise Christoffersen
Lise Christoffersen is a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party. She was elected to the Norwegian Parliament from Buskerud in 2005. On the local level, Christoffersen was a member of Drammen city council from 1983 to 2003, serving as deputy mayor from 1991 to 1995 and mayor from 1995 to...
, as well as several individual politicians from both opposition and government parties. When the proposal was up for consideration in May, it was however rejected by all parties in the Justice Committee except for the Progress Party. Minister of Justice Knut Storberget
Knut Storberget
Knut Storberget is a Norwegian barrister and politician for the Norwegian Labour Party. He became the Minister of Justice and the Police serving in the second cabinet Stoltenberg from 2005. Storberget stepped down on November 11, 2011.He was elected to the Norwegian Parliament from Hedmark in...
had earlier claimed there to be a "great danger" that a general ban on "wholly covering clothing" could conflict with Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Per-Willy Amundsen
Per-Willy Amundsen
Per-Willy Amundsen is a Norwegian politician and Member of Parliament for the Progress Party. He is currently the party's Spokesperson on Energy Issues.-Early and personal life:...
of the Progress Party in response claimed that the government was increasingly "hiding themselves behind international conventions" in questions regarding immigration and integration, in order to avoid tougher political discussions that divided the government.
Spain
Spanish resort island of Mallorca has banned women from wearing burqas or face-covering Islamic veils in public places, even though only two women living there are known to do so.Mayor Biel Serra of the town of Sa Pobla said Monday night's vote was not about cultural or religious discrimination but rather an issue of public safety and having people show their faces so they can be identified.
He told the AP Tuesday the ban also applies to other face-covering headgear like ski masks.
Sa Pobla joins a handful of other Spanish towns who have enacted some form of ban on body-covering burqas or face-covering niqabs. Biel said the two women in Sa Pobla wore the latter
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/06/another-spanish-town-bans-burqa-in-public/#ixzz1XDHeXm6u.
A 2010 survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that a clear majority of Spanish people support banning the burka.
Sweden
In Sweden, the wearing of Islamic dress is permitted. Swedish prime minister Fredrik ReinfeldtFredrik Reinfeldt
John Fredrik Reinfeldt is the Prime Minister of Sweden, leader of the liberal conservative Moderate Party and former President of the European Council...
declared himself to be against a ban on veils in January 2010, saying "legislation shouldn’t lead to certain women being isolated even more from Swedish society". Coalition partner Centre Party
Centre Party (Sweden)
The Centre Party is a centrist political party in Sweden. The party maintains close ties to rural Sweden and describes itself as "a green social liberal party". The ideology is sometimes called agrarian, but in a European context, the Centre Party can perhaps best be characterized as social...
also declared being against a ban, describing the wearing of head-to-toe veils as "a rarely occurring problem" that is "not something that should be solved through legislation". Opposition leader Mona Sahlin
Mona Sahlin
Mona Ingeborg Sahlin is a Swedish politician and the former leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.Sahlin has been a Member of Parliament, representing Stockholm County, from 1982 to 1996 and again since 2002. She has also held various ministerial posts in the Swedish government from 1990...
rejected the idea of such a law as well.
Turkey
Turkey is a secular state founded by Mustafa Kemal AtatürkMustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....
in 1923. Atatürk saw headscarves as backward-looking and an obstacle to his campaign to secularize and modernize the new Turkish Republic. (The fez, worn by men, was banned.) Kemalist ideology continues to emphasize secularism, despite the majority of Turks being Muslims.
Until the 1960's, female students or public servants wearing headscarves were not seen in Turkey. In 1968, a university student, Hatice Babacan, refused to remove her headscarf and from then onwards, although there was not a uniformly applied ban, some problems began to arise for students wearing headscarves at universities.
With the rise of the Islamic movement in Turkey in the 1970's and early 1980's, the number of university students wearing headscarves increased substantially and in 1984, the first widespread application of headscarf ban came into effect at the universities, but throughout 1980's and 1990's, the ban was not uniformly enforced and many students were able to graduate, albeit with lots of difficulties, and begin their professional careers without compromising on their headscarves. After the so-called "28 February process" in 1997, the ban on headscarves and other Islamic coverings were taken to such extremes that even some hospitals refused to care for patients wearing headscarves. The headscarf ban in public spaces, including schools and universities (public and private), courts of law, government offices and other official institutions, is only for students, workers and public servants. Hence, mothers of pupils or visitors have no problems at all entering the primary schools, but they would not be able to work as teachers. Similarly, at the courts of law, the ban only involves judges, attorneys, lawyers and other workers. Wearing headscarves in photos on official documents like licenses, passports, and university enrollment documents is prohibited.
In 1998, a Turkish student was banned for wearing a headscarf at Istanbul University
Istanbul University
Istanbul University is a Turkish university located in Istanbul. The main campus is adjacent to Beyazıt Square.- Synopsis :A madrasa, a religious school, was established sometime in the 15th century after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. An institution of higher education named the...
. In 2000, Nuray Bezirgan, a Turkish student, wore a headscarf at her college final exams. A Turkish court sentenced her to six months jail for "obstructing the education of others". The European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
upheld the ban in 2004, saying the rules on dress were "necessary" and did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights
European Convention on Human Rights
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953...
. In October 2006, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the university ban again, rejecting a complaint filed by another Turkish university student.
In October 2006, Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer
Ahmet Necdet Sezer
- External links :* , Presidency of the Republic of Turkey...
refused to allow Justice and Development Party
Justice and Development Party (Turkey)
The Justice and Development Party , abbreviated JDP in English and AK PARTİ or AKP in Turkish, is a centre-right political party in Turkey. The party is the largest in Turkey, with 327 members of parliament...
(AKP) politicians whose wives wear the headscarves, at a ball marking Turkish independence, saying it would "compromise" and undermine the secular state founded by Kemal Atatürk.
On February 7, 2008, the Turkish Parliament passed an amendment to the constitution, allowing women to wear the headscarf in Turkish universities, arguing that many women would not seek an education if they could not wear the hijab. The decision was met with powerful opposition and protests from secularists
Secularism in Turkey
Secularism in Turkey defines the relationship between religion and state in the country of Turkey. Secularism was first introduced with the 1928 amendment of the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the "Religion of the State is Islam", and with the later reforms of...
. On June 5, 2008, the Constitutional Court of Turkey reinstated the ban on constitutional grounds of the secularity of the state. Headscarves had become a focal point of the conflict between the ruling AKP party and the secularist establishment, which includes the courts, universities, and army. The ruling was widely seen as a victory for Turks who claim this maintains Turkey's separation of state and religion.
United Kingdom
Former Secretary of State for Justice and Lord ChancellorLord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
Jack Straw
Jack Straw
Jack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also refer to:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" , 1971 song by the Grateful Dead* Jack Straw by W...
initiated a nation-wide controversy on "the veil" by criticising its use in 2006. Straw said he would prefer to see no veils: "Yes. It needs to be made clear I am not talking about being proscriptive but with all the caveats, yes, I would rather."
In 2010, Jack Straw publicly apologised over his 2006 comments, stating "If I had realised the scale of publicity that they [his comments] received in October 2006, I wouldn’t have made them and I am sorry that it has caused problems and I offer that apology."
The legal status of Islamic dress in schools was clarified by the Shabina Begum case
Shabina Begum
R v Governors of Denbigh High School [2006] is the leading House of Lords case on the legal regulation of religious symbols and dress under the Human Rights Act 1998.-Facts:...
, where the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords ruled that freedom to manifest religious beliefs was not absolute, and could be restricted. Conservative columnist Theodore Dalrymple, noting that Shabina Begum was represented by the Prime Minister's wife Cherie Blair
Cherie Blair
Cherie Blair , known professionally as Cherie Booth QC, is a British barrister working in the legal system of England and Wales. She is married to the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair; the couple have three sons and one daughter...
, claims that the judgement was a political one, a concession to Muslim opinion offended by the campaign against Islamist terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
.
In the Aishah Azmi
Aishah Azmi
Aishah Azmi is a British Muslim woman who came to public attention in 2006 after being suspended and then dismissed from her position as a classroom assistant in a Church of England faith school for refusing to take off her niqab when required to work in a classroom alongside a male teacher...
case, an employment tribunal
Employment tribunal
Employment Tribunals are tribunal non-departmental public bodies in England and Wales and Scotland which have statutory jurisdiction to hear many kinds of disputes between employers and employees. The most common disputes are concerned with unfair dismissal, redundancy payments and employment...
held that a school could refuse to employ a veiled teacher (wearing the niqab
Niqab
A niqab is a cloth which covers the face, worn by some Muslim women as a part of sartorial hijāb...
). Government ministers intervened in the employment tribunal case, supporting the school. This case provoked Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
to comment that the veil was a "mark of separation", and minister Phil Woolas
Phil Woolas
Philip James Woolas was a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Oldham East and Saddleworth from his election in 1997 to 2010. He was the Minister of State for Borders and Immigration in the Home Office, as well as being the Minister of State for the Treasury...
demanded that Azmi be sacked, accusing her of "denying the right of children to a full education". The school subsequently sacked her.
In another case, a lawyer dressed in a niqab was told by an immigration judge that she could not represent a client because, he said, he could not hear her.
Veils have also been accused of causing problems in the fight against crime:
- Mustaf Jama, wanted for the murder of British policewoman Sharon BeshenivskySharon BeshenivskyPC Sharon Beshenivsky was a West Yorkshire Police constable shot dead by a criminal gang during a robbery in Bradford on 18 November 2005, becoming the seventh female police officer in Great Britain to be killed on duty....
, is reported by some newspaper accounts to have dressed in a Muslim veil in order to flee the country, though the Home Office said "the claim was unlikely to be true as women can be asked to lift veils in identity checks." - A man wanted on terrorism charges is also believed to have dressed up in a BurqaBurqaA burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic religion to cover their bodies in public places. The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering , plus the head-covering , plus the face-veil .-Etymology:A speculative and unattested etymology...
, a garment which completely covers the body and face, in order to escape the police.
A recent YouGov
YouGov
YouGov, formerly known as PollingPoint in the United States, is an international internet-based market research firm launched in the UK in May 2000 by Stephan Shakespeare, now Chief Executive Officer, and Nadhim Zahawi...
survey said that 67% of British people questioned wanted full-face veils outlawed.
See also
- MulticulturalismMulticulturalismMulticulturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
- EurabiaEurabiaEurabia is a conspiracy theory about the alleged Arabization and Islamization of Europe, and the European leaders' alleged capitulation to Islamic influences.-Origin of the term:...
- Muslims in Western Europe
- Women in Muslim societies
- Islam and clothingIslam and clothingAdherents of Islam are concerned with clothing in two contexts: clothing for everyday wear, inside and outside the house; and clothing required in specifically religious contexts....
- Hijab controversy in Quebec
External links
- Burqa ban: What it means for the West By TCN News
- VEIL Project - Values, Equality and Differences in Liberal Democracies. Debates about Muslim Headscarves in Europe (University of ViennaUniversity of ViennaThe University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
) - Headscarf defeat riles French Muslims from BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
- Q&A: Muslim headscarves from BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
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- The Islamic veil across Europe(BBC)-How approaches to the Muslim veil differ across Europe.