Belgian ban on full veils comes into force

[Gerald]

A law has come into force in Belgium banning women from wearing the full Islamic veil in public.

The country is the second European Union nation after France to enforce such a ban. Offenders face a fine of 137.5 euros (£121; $197) and up to seven days in jail.


MPs voted to ban veils on the grounds of security.

Two women who wear full veils launched an immediate court challenge, saying the law is discriminatory.

France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim population, enforced its ban in April.

Belgium's law bans any clothing that obscures the identity of the wearer in places like parks and on the street.

It was passed almost unanimously by the lower house of parliament in April 2010.

MPs voted with only two abstentions to back the legislation on the grounds of security, to allow police to identify people.

Other MPs said that full face veils such as the burka or the niqab were a symbol of the oppression of women.

But critics of the law say it could end up excluding women, leaving those who do wear the full veil trapped in their homes.

And they say the measures are over the top - estimates suggest only a few dozen women wear this kind of veil in Belgium, out of a Muslim population of about half a million.

"We consider the law a disproportionate intrusion into fundamental rights such as the freedom of religion and expression," Ines Wouters, the lawyer representing the two women challenging the ban, told the newspaper La Libre.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14261921

Note: 23 July 2011 Last updated at 15:14 GMT

[BossMark]

I agree they should be banned on the grounds of security and I hope they get banned in the UK as well but I very much doubt it

Is this another silly law that has been brought in to great populist fanfare to only legally impede the clothing of a few dozen people

[Tchocky]

Women should be free to wear what they like, and not be pressured by men into certain garb.

But they shouldn't be free to wear a full veil. Because that's.........for their protection?

I can't understand this stuff. Belgium has bigger problems at the moment, why go trying to solve nonexistent ones?

Tchocky for the Aras#
though change the name asthe sound of it might get the 32sc excited

[Jimbuna]

This could actually have a detrimental effect on those it appertains to....depends on the reaction of their male opposites I suppose when you consider the culture involved.

I'll keep an open mind on the matter.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Women should be free to wear what they like, and not be pressured by men into certain garb.

But they shouldn't be free to wear a full veil. Because that's.........for their protection?

I can't understand this stuff. Belgium has bigger problems at the moment, why go trying to solve nonexistent ones?

Demanding the native population to accept foreigners wearing Burkhas is a political move to force them to fall back. Like the claim "we are offended by Europeans' criticism of Islam" doe snot mean they are offended, but also is a rethorical weapon to enforce European comp0liance with Islamic demands to be excepted from rules that are valid for all others - but not for Islam.

It is ab out iunmtegratiuon, Tchocky. Inmtegration is a mandatory obligation of the newcomer in a foreign place. Allowing the newcomer to completely separate himself from local habits and natives' rules, is no integration.

And btw, women in Islamic countries get educated from childhood on to comply with Islamic rolemodels, and to be submissive and obedient to male dominance. Islam's roledmodelling is machismo and is extreme sexual discrimination. Why do you think that girls raised in such a cultural climate are so powerful by birth that they could escape these social-cultural pressures by themselves? Is it really freedom to demand them to hide thermselves from the listy males that else would group rape them if they provoke them with their display of uncovered skin - or are they just parotting masybe what they have been told, taught and educated from childhood on?

I once saw a documentary oin TV, about a tribe in africa. It was no Muslim group, don'T worry, nevertheless they practiced circumcision of young women, and some strange surgical mutilation of the earlobes. Both is extremely painful, and the first is a serious risk to their health. Nevertheless, they asked some girls that would get it done in some days in the future, whether they aren't afraid, and whether they wouldn't prefer to escape the tgormenting procedure. They said all "No". They wanted it to get done - because in their understanding this was what turned them into adult women. They said they would not find husbands if they would not do it.

It also is about being indoctrinated from all childhood on.

Women in Islam are both weapon-producers (as lifestock they have to give birth to future djihadis to support the ongoing conquest by Islam), and today they also are political weapons themselves that allow Islam to turn several Western freedoms and values ahgainst the West in order to destroy it. And you fall for it. You also ignore the courage and the hopes of those thosuands and tens of thousands that every year flee from Muhameddan countries to escape those supressive rules that you just agreed to call the liberty and freedom of women in Islam, and their own decisiuon of what they are allowed to do and what not. They are not allowed - they are indoctrinated. You must not beolieve me, but the confessions of many apostates and couragous former Muslim women speaking out against it in the West - which they would have not been allowed to do in Muslim countries - is more worthy an argument than anything I could say on their behalf anyway.

On the political role of women as weapons in Islam's mission to subjugate the non-Islamic world, I can only recommend the German book Allah's Schleier: Die frau im Kampf der Kulturen, third opart of a comprehensive triology that compares Islam'S ideology to that of Christian and other cultures. The book is not focussed on critclly assessing just Islam, but also criticises the supression of females that has taken place in Wetsern culture as well.

Women are not free in Islam, Tchocky. They got trained to consider it their free will when they function in the way that is expected of them. If you call that "free will", then you make mockery of all those many many women that as teenage girls get exported to for example Kurdish or Albanian or Turkish colonists in Europe for enforced marriage, you ignore the patriarchalic claim for power of girls and women that is integral part of Islamic ideology and teaching.

And again: integration is a mandatory obligation of newcomers in foreign societies. That you accept and comply local rules and habits, that you adopt said rules and habits, and try not to separate yourself from the natives' ways and appearance and cloathing, but adapt to them - all that is integration.

This is our home places here inEurope. I do not want these to be turned into the looks of oriental bazaars, medieval villages and primitive tribal caves and supressive slave-uniforms. Because the looks of the places we cal, our own has somethign to do with whom we are, with our history and our cultural identity - and I nhappen to like much of wehat our homecoutnries look like.

And I happen to dislike talking penguins and walking mummies that by their very appearance already signal me that they give not a single dime for our homecountries and do not intend at all to ever integrate into our societies, but expect us to integrate in theirs.

I have been in their countries, and I know my country a bit, and saw some other europpoean countries on the fly.

Ours are better. Much better. And there is not much, if anything, that we need to copy from theirs. That's true for their coutnries. That is true for their rites and religions. That is true for the level of freedoms they have in their countries. Minarettes have no place in the sight of the Swiss alps. Islam is no integral part of Europe. The yelling muazzin is no sound we should yearn for to complete the "multicultural" feeling of the sound envrionment in the Hamburg harbour. If I want this and other oriental impressions - I pack my suitcase again and travel to the orient again. I do not desire to bring the taste of the orient to Europe.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by BossMark

I agree they should be band on the grounds of security and I hope they get band in the UK as well but I very much doubt it

Just so you know, it's "banned".

[Jimbuna]

LOL, trust you...and here's me thinking we were discussing some kind of dancing costume

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Just so you know, it's "banned".

knit-picker

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by krashkart

knit-picker

Hold still. You have something in your hair.

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Hold still. You have something in your hair.

Wha...? Trilobites again? Sheesh. I won't be spending money on another mixopterus, that's for sure.

[Platapus]

Would I be allowed to walk the streets of Washington, London, Paris, or Berlin (or name your capital of choice) wearing a mask that obscured my identity?

If the answer is no, then women should not be allowed to wear a full veil.

If the answer is yes, then women should be allowed to wear a full veil.

After all businesses can still restrict doing business with people who conceal their identity (banks do it) and private citizens can always restrict access to private property to anyone who conceals their identity.

So this really comes down to public property and government facilities.

Are there any laws that would prevent me from walking down the street, minding my own business, wearing a mask that conceals my identity?

I am not aware of any in the United States but I don't know about other countries.

[Anthony W.]

You know, I'm fine if they wear them to the supermarket and around town, but they need to be banned in ID photos, at airports and other large gathering places, and anywhere else ID is required.

I hope the US passes laws like that, too.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by krashkart

knit-picker

Oh, and it's "nit", not "knit". yourself!