Huff Post: by Elizabet Nicholas —

While opposition to burqas might seem like an obvious position for feminists, the ban can have negative practical and psychological implications for Muslim women. The sad irony of a ban meant to give women a voice is that the ban makes them choose between their religious codes and their public lives. The very women and girls whose voices and agency would be most strengthened by access to education and civil society remain shut away. In practice, the ban more isolates Muslim women than it does infuse them with the spirit ofliberté, egalité, fraternité.

Another conflict between the European Union and one of its member states has come to a head over France’s prohibition of women wearing the naqib, or the full-face veil. The European Court of Human Rights is considering a case brought by an unnamed Muslim woman who says the French mandate that she remove her veil in public is an infringement on her religious, free speech, and privacy rights. On the same day that the case was brought before the Court, the Paris Court of Appeals ruled that a private day-care center had been within its rights to fire Fatima Afif for refusing to remove her headscarf, reversing a decision by the French Supreme Court that said the day care center’s actions amounted to religious discrimination. Afif’s lawyer said he is willing to take the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.

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