Burqa ban debate sweeping Europe after ECHR ruling

After the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in favor France’s prohibition of face veils on Tuesday, a number of European countries are preparing the launch debates on introducing a similar ban.

Norway, Denmark and Austria have already braced themselves for new burqa ban debate, after the Strasbourg court ruled that the French law which was introduced in 2010 was legal.
Norway’s Progress Party member Mazyar Keshvari told the VG daily, “We must consider whether we should promote the proposal again, after the court in Strasbourg has now confirmed what we have constantly said: that a ban is compatible with human rights,”
Jan Bohler of Norway’s Labour Party also encouraged a new debate on the ban in a new light, saying “When parliament rejected such a ban in 2013, the main argument was that Norway risked being censured in the ECHR. Now that argument falls away. I think we need to take a new discussion about a possible ban.”

Likewise former Labour Party leader and current Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland welcomed the ruling, telling NRK “I think it is a positive judgement. It states that any person who participates in a community has an obligation to show their face, otherwise no other community members can relate to you.”

“I would think that the judgement can be applied in exactly the same way in other member states, if they want a similar ban,” he added.

Meanwhile in Denmark the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party said they want to see a similar ban enacted.
“[A ban] would send the signal that we do not accept parallel societies and isolation. We see [the burqa] as a rejection of Danish society. It is a sign that one wishes to distance themselves from the rest of society,” Danish People’s Party member Martin Henriksen told Politiken.

“I think it is completely obvious,” added the party’s values spokesperson Pia Kjaersgaard while speaking to Berlingske. “It simply doesn’t work that women go around completely covered and that people can not see their facial expressions or see who is standing in front of them.”

Austria’s Freedom Party is also calling for a ban on burqas, with spokeswoman Carmen Gartelgruber saying that a motion will be introduced to Austria’s parliament next week to ban the public wearing of the burqa, arguing that there is no religious compulsion in Islam to be fully veiled.

Source: World Bulletin