Spanish parliament rejects total ban on veil

Parliament MadridSpain’s Parliament on Tuesday rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.

However, the Socialist government has said it favors including a ban on people wearing burqas in government buildings in an upcoming bill on religious issues to be debated after parliament’s summer vacation break.

Following a lower chamber debate, 183 lawmakers opposed the ban, 162 voted for it and two abstained.

The nonbinding proposal had been put forward by the leading opposition Popular Party, which portrayed it as a measure in support of women’s rights. The ruling Socialist Party opposed the ban.

“It is very difficult to understand how it is that our troops are defending liberty in Afghanistan and the government doesn’t have the courage to do so here, in Spain,” said opposition spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria in Parliament.

Some analysts had interpreted the proposal as an opposition ploy to build their party’s strength amid the economic turmoil and dismal growth prospects that have dogged the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

None of the opposition spokesmen consulted had been able to cite a place in Spain where women routinely wear face-covering veils.

“This has been used politically in a search for electoral support,” said Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Commission of Spain. He said he last saw a woman wearing a burqa in Spain 10 years ago in the southern city of Marbella, where Saudi Arabia’s royal family and other wealthy Arab clans own large homes and estates.

Escudero said the woman could have been a tourist. The only woman he knew who regularly wore a burqa had lived in the southern city of Cordoba and died about a decade ago.

Associated Press, 21 July 2010

Immigration minister opposes ban on veil – Toby Young not happy

Toby_YoungIn an interview with the Sunday Telegraph immigration minister Damian Green is quoted as saying:

“I stand personally on the feeling that telling people what they can and can’t wear, if they’re just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do. We’re a tolerant and mutually respectful society.

“There are times, clearly, when you’ve got to be able to identify yourself, and people have got to be able to see your face, but I think it’s very unlikely and it would be undesirable for the British Parliament to try and pass a law dictating what people wore.

“I think very few women in France actually wear the burka. They [the French parliament] are doing it for demonstration effects.”

Elsewhere in the Telegraph, under the headline “By refusing to ban the burka, Damian Green is supporting the humiliation of millions of British women”, Toby Young informs his readers that “the burka is both a symbol and a source of the oppression of Muslim women”.

According to Young: “Few people can be in any doubt that Islam is a deeply misogynistic religion.” As for wearing the veil, according to Young “for most Muslim women it is not a free choice but something they’re forced to do by their fathers or brothers or husbands – and the consequences of disobeying can be a beating or worse”.

To which we can only respond: Few people can be in any doubt that Toby Young is a deeply ignorant bigot.

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Spanish parliament to debate veil ban

Spanish lawmakers will debate barring burqas in public, joining other European countries considering similar moves on the grounds that the body-covering garments are degrading to women, the leading opposition party said Sunday.

Top officials of the ruling Socialist Party have indicated they will support the proposal by the opposition Popular Party, making a ban likely unless the country’s highest court rules it unconstitutional.

A debate in Spain’s lower house has been set by the Popular Party for Tuesday or Wednesday, the party said. No vote will be scheduled until after the debate, and Spain’s Parliament usually goes on vacation for a month starting in late July or early August.

Head-covering veils would not be included in a ban as they form a part of traditional Spanish dress, with women often covering their heads with a garment called a mantilla, especially during church services in the south of the country.

Spain has about 1 million Muslims in the nation of 47 million, with most living in the northeastern region of Catalonia and the southern region Andalucia. However, burqas are rarely seen.

Associated Press, 18 July 2010

See also Press Association, 18 July 2010

Hollobone says he will ban veil-wearing constituents from surgeries

Philip HolloboneA Conservative MP says he will refuse to hold meetings with Muslim women wearing full Islamic dress at his constituency surgery unless they lift their face veil. Last night Muslim groups condemned Philip Hollobone and accused him of failing in his duty as an MP.

In an interview with The Independent, the Kettering MP said: “I would ask her to remove her veil. If she said: ‘No’, I would take the view that she could see my face, I could not see hers, I am not able to satisfy myself she is who she says she is. I would invite her to communicate with me in a different way, probably in the form of a letter.”

Independent, 17 July 2010

67 per cent support veil ban in UK

Two thirds of British people would support a ban on Muslim women wearing face-covering veils in public similar to the one approved by French lawmakers this week, a poll found Friday

An online survey of 2,205 adults for Five News television found 67 percent of respondents agreed that the burkha – the full-face veil – should be banned. That figure rose to 80 percent among people aged over 55.

The YouGov poll was carried out between Wednesday and Friday, after France’s lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to ban full Islamic veils in public spaces.

A Harris poll for the Financial Times in March revealed Britons were among the most tolerant in Europe towards the Islamic veil, with just 57 percent backing a ban, compared to 70 percent in France and 65 percent in Spain.

AFP, 16 July 2010

French parliament votes to ban veil

France’s lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public. There were 335 votes for the bill and only one against in the 557-seat National Assembly. It must now be ratified by the Senate in September to become law.

Many of the opposition Socialists, who originally wanted the ban limited only to public buildings, abstained from voting after coming under pressure from feminist supporters of the bill.

After the vote, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said it was a victory for democracy and for French values. “Values of freedom against all the oppressions which try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice.”

“Democracy thrives when it is open-faced,” Ms Alliot-Marie told the National Assembly when she presented the bill last week.

The Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, warned in March that the law could be found unconstitutional. If the bill passes the Senate in September, it will be sent immediately to France’s Constitutional Council watchdog for a ruling. Another challenge is possible at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where decisions are binding.

BBC News, 14 July 2010

See also “France vote to ban full-face veils condemned by Amnesty”,Amnesty press release, 13 July 2010

Express repeats call for veil ban

France Votes to Ban BurkhaDemands to ban the burkha in Britain were growing last night after France voted to outlaw the wearing of Islamic full-face veils in public.

The Government was urged to follow Paris’s example and stand up against the face and body coverings which have been condemned for creating a divided Britain.

In France, where the burkha has been described as a “walking coffin”, the new law means women will be fined or jailed for hiding their faces in public. And men who force their wives to wear a full Islamic veil will face tougher fines and up to a year behind bars.

Spain and the Netherlands are considering similar legislation and there are calls for Britain to follow suit as the veils become an increasingly common sight on our streets.

Tory MP Philip Hollobone, who has launched a Private Member’s Bill to ban “facial coverings”, said: “It is unnatural for someone to cover their face and it not a religious requirement. We are never going to have a fully integrated society if an increasing proportion of the population cover their faces.”

A ban on burkhas is supported by 99 per cent of Britons, a Daily Express poll found last month.

Daily Express, 15 July 2010

See also “Brits say banning the burkha is not anti-Muslim”, Daily Star, 14 July 2010