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Friday, November 17, 2006

Netherlands to ban burqa in public - from Al Jazeera

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 200623:57 MECCA TIME, 20:57 GMT

The Dutch government has decided to ban the wearing of burqas and other Muslim full-face veils in public, justifying the move on security grounds.Reports said on Friday that Rita Verdonk, the Dutch minister for immigration, would soon draw up legislation to impliment the burqa ban.

This will make the Netherlands, once among Europe's most liberal states, the first European country to impose a complete ban on Muslim veil.

Existing legislation already limits the wearing of burqas and other total face-coverings on public transport or in schools.

The debate on face veils and whether they hinder Muslim integration has gathered momentum across Europe. Several countries in Europe have already outlawed them in specific places.

The move by the Netherlands' centre-right government comes just five days before a general election.

The campaign has focused so far on issues like the economy rather than immigration because most mainstream parties have hardened their stances in recent years.

"The cabinet finds it undesirable that garments covering the face, including the burqa, should be worn in public in view of public order, and the security and protection of fellow citizens," the Dutch justice ministry said.

Last December Dutch lawmakers voted in favour of a proposal by far-right politician Geert Wilders to outlaw face-coverings and asked Verdonk to examine the feasibility of such a ban.

Because veils were worn for religious reasons, Verdonk had feared new legislation could come into conflict with religious freedom laws. But she said on Friday that this was not the case.

France has banned the Muslim headscarf and other religious garb from state schools while discussion in Britain centres on limiting the full facial veil or niqab.

Italy has a decades-old law against covering the face in public as an anti-terrorism measure. Some politicians have called for this rule to be enforced against veiled Muslim women.

Big fuss?

The Netherlands' Muslim community estimates that only about 50 women in the country wear the head-to-toe burqa or the niqab, a face veil that covers everything but the eyes.

Dutch Muslim groups have complained that a burqa ban would make the country's one million Muslims feel more victimised and alienated, regardless of whether they approve of burqas or not.

"This will just lead to more girls saying 'hey I'm also going to wear a burqa as a protest'," Naima Azough, a member of parliament from the opposition Green Left, told an election campaign meeting for fellow members of the Moroccan community.

Job Cohen, the Labour mayor of Amsterdam, said he opposed burqas in schools and public buildings, and said women wearing one who failed to get a job should not expect welfare benefits.

"From the perspective of integration and communication, it is obviously very bad because you can't see each other so the fewer the better," he told foreign journalists.

"But actually hardly anybody wears one ... The fuss is much bigger than the number of people concerned."

Since the murder of anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002, the Dutch have lost a reputation for tolerance, pushing through some of Europe's toughest entry and integration laws.

Social and religious tensions have escalated in the last few years, exacerbated by the murder of film director and Islam critic Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim man in 2004.

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