Word: burka
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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Fierce has been the uproar surrounding the French National Assembly’s recent efforts to outlaw the wearing of the burka (a full veil that masks a woman’s face and body, worn by some Muslim women). Although France has so far only managed to pass a non-binding resolution that calls the burka contrary to French republican values, many say a full ban is not far away...
...find such a prohibition distasteful. Their first argument has been that some women, for all we know, really do want to appear so garbed in public. They feel that it’s just as tyrannical for a non-Muslim majority to force Muslim women not to wear the burka as it is for Muslim men to force Muslim women to wear...
...contrast, some French anti-burkists argue that wearing the burka could be a safety hazard while driving at rush hour on crowded highways, for example. Likewise, if the burka remains legal, hardened non-Muslim criminals disguised as Muslim women could then be able to commit any number of crimes with great impunity. (Apparently, one such crime has already occurred.) Others have argued that because the French state outlaws walking down the street in the full monty, why can’t it outlaw its exact opposite? Yet another and more interesting argument has to with feminism and human rights...
...fact, this new legislative proposal represents a significant departure from the previous law and a disturbing radicalization of French political tactics. The responses of jurists to the government’s proposed legislation make it very clear: The “burka ban” does not uphold the principles of French republican law—it overtly violates them...
...applicable either, because the law targets a legally nebulous conception of public space, rather than specific state institutions. The Council of Europe’s Commissioner of Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, has likewise condemned the proposed law, stating: “The interdiction of the burka or the niqab would not liberate oppressed women, but could, on the contrary, exacerbate their exclusion in European societies.” The French League of Human Rights, while critical of the practice of “veiling,” is also opposed to the passage...