The Muslim Times supports modest dressing and head covering. For the Muslim Times’ collection about Hijab, please click here
Source: The Guardian
Schools, hospitals and public transport would be covered by ban, but Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte insists prohibition is not religiously motivated
The Dutch cabinet has approved a proposal for a partial ban on face-covering Islamic veils on public transport and in public areas such as schools and hospitals.
After the cabinet backed a bill by the interior minister, Ronald Plasterk, the government said in a statement on Friday: “Face-covering clothing will in future not be accepted in education and healthcare institutions, government buildings and on public transport.”
The ban would not apply to wearing the burqa or the niqab on the street, only for security reasons or “in specific situations where it is essential for people to be seen”, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, told journalists after a cabinet meeting.
He said: “The bill does not have any religious background.” The proposal will be sent to a panel of legal advisers for assessment.
The government said it had “tried to find a balance between people’s freedom to wear the clothes they want and the importance of mutual and recognisable communication”. It said the cabinet “sees no reason for a general ban that would apply to all public places”.
A previous bill that proposed banning face-covering veils on the street will be withdrawn. It dated from Rutte’s previous government, which was supported by the anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders.
It was agreed that a new bill would be drawn up by the coalition partners of Rutte’s VVD party and the PvdA party when they formed a coalition in 2012.
Those flouting the ban, if it is enforced, could be fined up to €405 (£288).
NOS, the state broadcaster, said that between 100 and 500 women in theNetherlands wore the burqa, most of them only occasionally.
Categories: Burka, Europe, Hijab, Netherlands
The Muslims will teach their fellow Christian brethren and sisters better ways of conceptualizing Monotheism and giving up the contradictory mystery of Trinity and they would in turn teach us about civic life, governance and secularism.
Suggested reading:
How Islam has Influenced Christian understanding of God
Burqa is not locking women, it is a buffer line between protecting chastity and exposing. Being naked and drunk is acceptable but being covered and modest is inhuman.
Surely nobody should be telling women what they can and can’t wear. Face covering? Would that extend to my precious Ray Bans? Why not… apparently face-recognition cameras don’t work when confronted by the simple sun glasses. And what about bushy beards and moustaches? And what next… hoods, floppy wide-brimmed hats, anti-pollution masks, scarves? Where does this silliness end? Just for peoples information when security’s a concern the women can remove the veil and the few I’ve spoken to do.. On the grand scale of things how much of an issue is this really? Don’t be distracted. Around 0.1% of the UK’s Muslim population were a veil.
Many have observed that today, modern Britain is responsible for objectifying women as sexual objects. The nations favourite newspaper still offers a daily dose of page 3 and it has been estimated that 13% of all internet searches have erotic content[2]. Indeed when Google releases the top 10 search strings of the year they have to discount all of the ones relating to porn otherwise all 10 would be un-publishable. Most of these sites have of course been developed by western companies seeking profits. You would have thought the Tory party would have plenty to keep themselves busy with as regards the furthering the plight of women. At least they would do if they all weren’t so busy watching it. A freedom of information request from the Huffington Post[3] revealed that the House of Commons authorities acknowledged that users of the Parliamentary Network servers, including both MPs and their staff, have repeatedly attempted to access websites classed on Parliament’s network as pornographic between May 2012 and July 2013. The number of attempts to access pornographic websites via the Parliamentary network peaked for 2012 at 114,844 last November and at 55,552 in April for 2013. Perhaps someone should send them some Niqab so they can cover their faces in shame.
We live in an overly vain culture that is having a detrimental effect upon the mental health of young women. We live in an overly promiscuous society in which abortion rates keep going up along with sexually transmitted diseases. It is a reality that some women may choose to opt out completely of this culture because they find it burdensome and exhausting on the spirit. Modern society is failing women and this has social consequences, no wonder the majority of people turning to Islam in the West are women, and no wonder that many of the women who wear the Niqab are British born converts.
The right to wear a Niqab is in-keeping with people’s freedom of expression which supposedly a modern day Britain seeks to preserve. The right to wear a Niqab is preserved under religious freedoms which supposedly a modern state should seek to uphold if it wants to remain in keeping with the UN charter. If a women believes it to be fore mostly an act of submission and dedication to their God, then I see no argument for a modern Britain to interfere. The niqab does not conflict with principles of feminism if it is a woman’s chosen form of dress. A significant aspect of feminism is giving a women the right to choose what she wishes to do with her own body. Many women who wear the niqab regard it as empowering, claiming that those they encounter, give greater value to their speech over their cosmetic appearance. That may seem strange to some people, but is it stranger than nudist beaches, pole dancing clubs or barely clad ladies staggering home in stilettoes after a night out on the tiles? Cultural conditioning and social constructions alone seem an unfair method of determining that which is ‘normal’.
French president wants Muslim women to be topless like his wife who posed topless in fashion shows. He has no right to ban the burqa because it is undemocratic and an unqualified attack on individual freedom. Burqa is not just a piece of cloth but a lot of ideological and cultural connotation to it. Women are just being exploited in the name of rights. Burqa protects women’s rights and treat each women like a princess. No one has the right to ban the freedom of choice in a secular and democratic country. The right to choice is a basic fundamental right the person should have.
One Muslim woman, Caroline Chaiima, writing in Lepoint.fr, said she wore a veil: “Let those most closely concerned speak. I am a French woman born in France, with French parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and I am a Muslim. I wear the full veil and I feel like saying: So what? I am happy behind the veil, I protect myself from depraved stares. Neither my father, nor my brother, nor my husband forced the full veil upon me; it’s a personal choice.”
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk