Ban the Burqa?

Algerian-American academic, Marnia Lazreg, for example, implores muslim women to voluntarily, freely refuse to cover their faces fully—to spurn even the headscarf; however, she does not want the state involved. French President, Nicolas Sarkozy wants Islamic burqas banned in France.

According to photographs taken by Annie Lady Brassey in Egypt in the 1870s, Egyptian women wore heavy, dark coverings with full niqab. In 1928, Shah Amanullah Khan urged Afghan women to uncover their faces and advocated the shooting of interfering husbands. In recent years, women wearing both hijabs and burqas have been seen on the streets of Istanbul.

A Palestinian-Lebanese-Syrian woman visiting the United States said, "In the 1920s, my mother, a university professor, was the first woman to take off her veil in Beirut. She had to remain at home under house arrest for one year due to the violence threatened by street mobs. Then, things changed for the better." In France itself, the 2005 riots by Muslims were the worst in the country since World War II.

Since 1981, women in Tunisia have been prohibited from wearing Islamic Dress, including headscarves, in schools. In 1975, Moroccan feminist, Fatima Mernissi described the lives of Moroccan Women as circumscribed by Ghazali's view of women, including women's eyes, as erotically irresistible, and as such, dangerous to men. Public servants in Malaysia are prohibited from wearing the niqab. Qur'anic verse (7:26) states, "We have sent down clothing to cover your shame." Certainly, this applies to both men and women, but patriarchal customs have almost exclusively targeted women. The Iranian government beat, arrested, and jailed women if they were improperly garbed and has recently warned that suntanned women and girls who looked like "walking mannequins" will be arrested as part of a new drive to enforce the Islamic Dress Code. No Saudi woman dares appear open-faced in public. Society persecutes women who do not wear a hijab. A woman who does not wear a hijab is guilty until proven. 

In 2004, eight of Germany's sixteen states enacted restrictions on wearing hair-covering veils, particularly in public schools. In February 2010, the French government refused to grant citizenship to a Moroccan Man who forced his wife to wear a burqa; later that year, three women actually engaged in a physical fight after a burqa-clad woman supposedly overheard another woman making snide remarks about her choice of dress. In August 2010, Sweden's education minister announced his intention to make it easier for Swedish schools to ban the burqa. Since January 2010, the Netherlands has limited the wearing of burqas in public spaces. In April 2010, A French Woman was fined for wearing a burqa while driving, and in the same month, a girl wearing hijab was sent home from her school in Madrid.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the first Muslim Cabinet Minister in the U.K., defended the right of women to choose whether or not to wear the burqa, claiming, "Just because a woman wears the burqa, it doesn't mean she can't engage in everyday life."