Source: OnIslam

N’DJAMENA, Chad – In a controversial decision, the Chadian police have warned that anyone wearing a full-face veil or niqab will be arrested to curb deteriorating security conditions and suicide attacks.

“This attack just confirms that a ban on the full-face veil was justified,” national police spokesman Paul Manga told Agence France Presse (AFP), adding that “it now must be respected more than ever by the entire population”.

“Anyone who does not obey the law will be automatically arrested and brought to justice,” he warned.

The controversial decision followed an attack at a market in the capital, N’Djamena, last Saturday which left 15 dead and 80 injured.

Spreading panic across the city, the assailant detonated an explosives belt when he was stopped for security checks at the entrance to the city’s main market.

Following the attack, which was claimed by Boko Haram militant group, security was tightened across the capital with police and soldiers deployed in all areas, including intersections, markets and mosques.

“What was happening elsewhere and what we heard about from media reports is now happening here,” said Zenaba, a woman trader in her forties.

“I’m really scared for me and my children,” she said.

Boko Haram, a Hausa term meaning “Western education is sinful”, is loosely modeled on Afghanistan’s Taliban.
The militant group says it is fighting enemies who have wronged its members through violence, arrests or economic neglect and corruption.

It has been blamed for a campaign of shootings and bombings against security forces and authorities in the north since 2009.

Boko Haram has escalated its six-year-old campaign to impose Islamic law on Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy and largest oil-producing nation.

The fighting has drawn in neighboring countries including Chad, Niger and Cameroon, as the militants broadened their border targets.

A four-nation coalition of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon has reportedly pushed the armed group from captured towns and villages in an operation that began in February.

The conflict has killed at least 15,000 people since 2009 and left more than 1.5 million homeless.

More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad and Cameroon.

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/africa/489821-chad-bans-niqab-arrests-those-wearing-it.html