French report calls for burqa ban

[pepperpot]

PARIS (AFP) – A French parliament report called for a ban on the full Islamic veil, saying Muslim women who wear the burqa or other similar face-covering veils, were posing an "unacceptable" challenge to French values.

After six months of hearings, a panel of 32 lawmakers recommended a ban on the face-covering veil in all schools, hospitals, public transport and government offices, the broadest move yet to restrict Muslim dress in France.

"The wearing of the full veil is a challenge to our republic. This is unacceptable," the report said. "We must condemn this excess."

The commission however stopped short of proposing broad legislation to outlaw the burqa in the streets, in shopping centres and other public venues after raising doubts about the constitutionality of such a move.

"The wearing of the full veil is the tip of the iceberg," said communist lawmaker Andre Gerin, the chair of the commission, who presented the report to the parliament speaker.

"There are scandalous practices hidden behind this veil," said Gerin who vowed to fight the "gurus" he said were seeking to export a radical brand of fundamentalism and sectarianism to France.

Tensions flared at the last minute when a group of right-wing lawmakers pushed unsuccessfully for a tougher measure to ban the burqa in all public venues.

In the end, the commission called on parliament to adopt a resolution stating that the all-encompassing veil was "contrary to the values of the republic" and proclaiming that "all of France is saying 'no' to the full veil".

The National Assembly resolution would pave the way to legislation making it illegal for anyone to appear with their face covered at state-run institutions and in public transport, for reasons of security.

Women who turn up at the post office or any government building wearing the full veil would be denied services such as a work visa, residency papers or French citizenship, the report said.

The opposition Socialists refused to endorse the final report, to protest the government's launching of a debate on national identity, which has exposed French fears about Islam.

Critics of the "burqa debate" have warned that it risks stigmatising France's six million Muslims and describe the wearing of the garment as a marginal phenomenon affecting few women.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy sought Tuesday to reassure France's estimated six million Muslims, saying in a speech at a cemetery for French Muslim soldiers that freedom to practise religion was enshrined in the constitution.

"Our country, which has known not only wars of religion but also fratricidal battles due to state anti-clericalism, cannot let French Muslim citizens be stigmatised," he said at Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery in northern France.

Despite a large Muslim presence, the sight of fully-veiled women is not common in France. Only 1,900 women wear the burqa, according to the interior ministry.

Half of them live in the Paris region and 90 percent are under 40.

Home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority, France is being closely watched at a time of particular unease over Islam, three months after Swiss voters approved a ban on minarets.

Sarkozy set the tone for the debate in June when he declared the burqa "not welcome" in France and described it as a symbol of women's "subservience" that cannot be tolerated in a country that considers itself a human rights leader.

French support for a law banning the full veil is strong: a poll last week showed 57 percent are in favour.

The leader of Sarkozy's right-wing party in parliament, Jean-Francois Cope, has already presented draft legislation that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their faces in public.

The bill is not expected to come up for debate before regional elections in March.

In 2004, France passed a law banning headscarves and any other "conspicuous" religious symbols in state schools after a long-running debate on how far it was willing to go to accommodate Islam in its strictly secular society.

Denmark, the Netherlands and Austria are also studying measures to ban the full veil.

My concern over the burqa, has always been one of security reasons.

[pepperpot]

Now Italy considers banning the burqa too
By Nick Pisa
Last updated at 6:16 PM on 07th October 2009
Comments (27) Add to My Stories Facing the ban: A woman dressed in the burqa, or full Islamic dress, with her face covered by a mask. Italian MPs are considering a bill banning the full garment
Italy today became the latest European government to announce it was considering introducing a law which would make wearing a burqa illegal.
MPs from the anti-immigration Northern League party, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ruling right wing coalition, have presented the proposal in a bill.
It comes just weeks after France also said that it was considering making the wearing of burqas by Muslim women illegal - a statement which prompted al Qaeda terrorists to vow revenge if it was banned.
Italy has more than one million Muslims but it is rare to see women wearing the full burqa.
There have been incidents, especially in northern cities such as Milan and Verona, where women wearing it have been asked to remove at least the face veil.
Last month centre-right politician Daniela Santanche was involved in clashes with Muslims after she attended an end of Ramadan festival and urged women to remove their burqas.
There has also been a backlash against the 'burkini', a bathing costume that is suitable for Islamic dress. Several Musilim women who have used swimming pools wearing burkinis in Italy have been asked to leave, with officials claiming the garments are 'unhygienic'.
The Northern League's proposal aims at amending a 1975 law, introduced amid concern over domestic terrorism, which bans anyone wearing anything which makes their identification impossible.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1218543/Now-Italy-considers-banning-burqa-too.html

I had to look up what a burkini was....
http://www.chickchatradio.com/ee/images/uploads/burkini_thumb.jpg

[Jolie Rouge]

What’s hiding behind France’s proposed burqa ban?
By The Monitor's Editorial Board
Wed Jan 27, 1:09 pm ET

The world’s arbiter of fashion, France, may soon ban the Muslim burqa.

A French parliamentary report on Tuesday called the full veil “unacceptable” and concluded: “We must condemn this excess.” It recommends forbidding it in many public places.

But it is the proposal itself that is excessive – for stepping on basic rights.

French authorities say that only about 1,900 women wear the burqa or the niqab, two versions of the full covering with a mesh or slit for the eyes. That’s .038 percent of France’s Muslim population of about 5 million that’s now deemed a threat to the French Republic and its values.

The burqa does not fit comfortably with Western sentiments. It’s closed; Westerners are open. They want to see people’s faces. It’s also viewed as a prison for women – even if Muslim women are free to choose it. And it symbolizes fundamentalist Islam, which conjures up images of terrorism. That’s perhaps why the Dutch and Austrians are also discussing a burqa ban.

But sentiments shouldn’t be confused with bedrock freedoms, including the right to practice one’s religion. Being uncomfortable with another’s faith or even dress – and encoding that discomfort in law – puts one on the slippery slope to official discrimination. Will Sikh turbans be next?

As President Obama says, “In the United States our basic attitude is that we’re not going to tell people what to wear.”

Close to 60 percent of French don’t see it that way, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He supports a burqa ban as a way to uphold France’s principles of secularism and equality (he has called the burqa a symbol of women’s “subservience”).

In 2004, the French banned all ostentatious religious symbols in public schools. In practice, it affected mostly Muslim girls, who could no longer wear the head scarf in the classroom.

If the recommendations on the full veil become law, it will become illegal to wear it in state venues such as hospitals, public buildings, and on trains and buses (though streets are not off limits). Its supporters see it as consistent with the head-scarf ban, but at least with that Muslim girls had a choice to go to a religious school. If the burqa is banned, what’s the choice for the women who wear it? Stay imprisoned in their neighborhoods?

To outsiders, the oversized reaction to the full veil looks like the French trying to hide their Muslim integration problems behind an edict. Actually, they’ve made progress integrating Muslims in recent years, with controversies over building mosques dying down, city halls reaching out to local Muslim leaders, and interfaith marriages increasing.

But the opportunity gap – in jobs, education, and housing – still yawns for many immigrants or children of immigrants, including Muslims. And the parliament’s report calls for lawmakers to work on the issue of “Islamophobia,” which the report condemns. The report also recommends creating a government-funded national school of Islamic studies.

In an age when it’s becoming more important to properly identify people – to prevent fraud, to prevent violence – a face-covering veil does present a challenge. But that’s a technical matter that requires a technical solution. It’s not a “challenge” to the French Republic, as the report claims. If anything, a ban would further alienate and stigmatize Muslims, not enfold them in French society.

Interestingly, the parliamentary report did not recommend a total ban on burqas. The concern is that such a flat-out prohibition would conflict with the Constitution. France should take the hint, and step back from this idea.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100127/cm_csm/276316



My concern over the burqa, has always been one of security reasons.

We had a case of bank robbers here that would open an account in a bank dressed in the full covering burqa, take advantage to scope out the location, then return and rob the bank.

[Jolie Rouge]

Student accused of lighting teacher on fire
Posted: Oct 24, 2013 5:43 PM by Michael Shingleton

BATON ROUGE - An eighth-grade student in Baton Rouge was arrested and expelled after authorities said the 14-year-old lit a substitute teacher's burqa on fire. The News 2 Investigative Unit started looking into the incident at Westdale Middle School, which happened on Oct. 4, because parents said they weren't notified about it.

According to the sheriff's office, the School Drug Task Force was called to campus at 9:50 a.m. that day to investigate a student who lit his teacher's clothing on fire. The East Baton Rouge Parish School System described the garment as a burqa, and the teacher told investigators she had just reprimanded the student for misbehaving when he lit her on fire with a cigarette lighter.

The substitute was treated at Westdale and is fine, according to the sheriff's office. The student was charged with aggravated assault on a school teacher and brought to juvenile detention.

News 2 asked a school system spokesperson why parents weren't notified, which led to allegations the school was trying to cover up the incident. The school released a statement which read, "an investigation was conducted and appropriate disciplinary action was taken pursuant to the district's policies and procedures. The student no longer attends Westdale Middle School and has been expelled."

http://www.wbrz.com/news/student-accused-of-lighting-teacher-on-fire/

How many "isolated incidents" have to happen before we start admitting that we have a very serious discipline issue in this parish?

[Jolie Rouge]

France Cancels Dinner Over Iranian President's Wine-Free Request

France countered with an offer of breakfast, but that was "too cheap."

Andy Campbell Reporter, The Huffington Post

No dinner with extended family is complete without a little whine.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is making a European tour starting this weekend, following a sweeping deal with Europe and the U.S. that would lift international sanctions in exchange for strict nuclear rules.

But no rules are more strict, perhaps, than France's cultural and culinary customs. French officials reportedly canceled plans for a formal meal in Paris between Rouhani and French President Francois Hollande, because the Iranians demanded a wine-free affair with halal meat, The Independent reports.

The two leaders will instead meet on Tuesday -- after Rouhani's visits with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Pope Francis and Italian companies over the weekend -- but not over a meal. French officials apparently tried to counter Iran's demands with an offer of breakfast, but RTL Radio reports that the Iranians called that idea "too cheap."

It's possible that the real spat is between the two countries' party planners, and that neither leader was involved in the meal-breaking decision.

But the meeting is nevertheless an important moment for both. France is among several European powers planning to lift economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for strict monitoring and limits on the country's nuclear program.

Huffington Post's Jessica Shulberg reports:


Over the next six to nine months, Iran will begin dismantling the bulk of its centrifuges, shipping out stockpiles of uranium, and filling the center of the heavy-water reactor in Arak with concrete so it can no longer produce plutonium that could be used as nuclear weapons fuel.

Once the International Atomic Energy Agency declares that Iran has lived up to its end of the deal, the U.S., the European Union and the U.N. will begin to lift sanctions, providing Iran with over $50 billion.

Rouhani said Wednesday on European television that Iran and France are already in talks about auto and air manufacturing deals, according to The Associated Press. Rouhani insisted that Iran "is completely ready to keep all of its commitments" of the nuclear deal as long as the other signatories "keep theirs as well."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/france-iran-wine-dinner_5643dadfe4b08cda3487720f

Religious extremists have to adjust to the beliefs of others. The Iranian extremists were rude to request no wine. All they had to do was not drink it. You dont go to someone's home and dictate your rules over theirs.