Word: burkas
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Last June, shortly after the French Communist Deputy André Gérin launched the idea for a parliamentary commission on the burka, a Parisian journalism student went in search of the controversial article of clothing. The quest ended in failure: From the cosmopolitan neighborhood of Barbès to that of Belleville, shopkeepers repeatedly insisted that, while they sold plenty of headscarves and the occasional niqab, no clients had ever sought to purchase a burka...
...extension of the commitments outlined in a 2004 law on “laïcité” that outlawed all “ostensible” religious symbols from public schools. In other words, six years ago it was the headscarf, now it is the burka. Then it was public schools, now it is public space...
...license photo. (She lost on appeal.) Meanwhile, the debate over head coverings has been raging in Europe and parts of the Middle East over whether schools and other institutions can ban Muslim clothing such as the hijab (headscarf), the niqab (veil with an opening for the eyes), or the burka (piece of fabric that covers the entire face and body). (See pictures of Muslims in America...
PARIS, France — France, a country with nearly four million Muslims, is now considering a ban on the traditional Muslim burka. President Nicholas Sarkozy recently declared that the garb is “not welcome” in his country, since France would not accept that “women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity.” While some have touted this move as a chance to remove women from the strictures thrust on them by an oppressive fundamentalist culture, others disagree...
After living in Paris for the summer, I have found that it is a rare sight to see women in this traditional Muslim attire. Here, it is doubtful that anyone actually avoids stares by wearing the burka in public, because they do stand out. However, a personal choice of how to dress, even if it does have religious associations, should not be proscribed by the government...