A majority of parliament is ready if necessary to ban face-covering Muslim niqab veils after a family care worker refused to remove hers on the job. Politicians at parliament are prepared to give employers the right to ban Muslim niqab and burka veils for employees as a result of yet another incident involving the culture clash between conservative Islam and the West.
Odense municipality requested that the Ministry of Consumer and Family Affairs rule on a case where a Muslim woman refused to remove her veil for her job as a family care worker. Odense indicated it was not certain whether it had the authority to reject the woman as a legitimate caretaker on the grounds of her veil under the existing provisions.
Politicians had already been in an uproar over an incident last week where a Muslim parliamentary candidate indicated she would continue to wear her headscarf if she were elected. The niqab covers all of the wearer’s face except the eyes.
Carina Christensen, the Conservative family affairs minister, indicated she would not get involved in the case, which angered many parliamentary members. Conservative leader Bendt Bendtsen made it clear that his party would not accept family care employees hiding their faces from their charges. “We say no to burkas and veils in family care. Care workers are role models and accordingly must promote a proper image of women,” Bendtsen told Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
Bendtsen has the backing of the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who believes public institutions should be able to determine the dress of their employees. “The burka does not belong in family day care nor in public care institutions,” Rasmussen told Politiken newspaper. “We will naturally ensure that there are provisions in the law that allows Odense municipality to forbid the veil.” “I personally believe it’s quite fair that children should be able to see who is caring for them,” said the prime minister.
The far-left Red-Green Alliance also understood the need to have strict regulations in the matter, but did not commit to supporting any change in the law. “This is neither about special treatment or religion. It is a well-founded desire to stress that it is important in family care situations to see the caretaker’s facial expressions,” said Jørgen Arbo-Baehr, the party’s integration spokesperson.
A bus company in Edinburgh has sparked anger over rules requiring drivers to ask Muslim women wearing the veil to show their faces. Religious groups and unions said the rules introduced by Lothian Buses to catch potential fare cheats were unnecessary. Passengers have been told to lift their veils or produce a passport or driving licence when boarding. The company said the rules brought them into line with airport security.
The construction of minarets in Switzerland looks sets to go to a nationwide vote after a group of rightwing politicians launched a campaign calling for a ban. The country’s Muslim community says it is stunned by what it sees as an “Islamophobic” move, which it warns will undermine already fragile relations. Those behind a people’s initiative, who include members of the county’s biggest political party, the Swiss People’s Party, have until November 2008 to raise the 100,000 signatures required to force a ballot.
THE HAGUE – Freedom Party PVV faction leader Geert Wilders is arguing that all Islamic schools in the Netherlands should be shut down immediately. He says this measure is necessary in order to “protect children against the spread of Islamic doctrine.”
After years of searching for a place to worship, Muslims in the northern English town of Clitheroe have won planning permission to transform a former Methodist chapel into a mosque.
A row has broken out in Lincoln over a letter sent by a British National Party representative to the council leader criticising a new mosque in the city. Richard Foster, the BNP’s regional representative in Lincoln, wrote claiming the mosque, on the site of a former church, could “teach terrorism”.