Muslims see prejudice in veil ban

VENISSIEUX, France France on Monday formally banned the wearing of veils in public places, becoming the first country in Europe to impose restrictions on a form of attire that some Muslims consider a religious obligation.

The ban, which came after a year of debate and months of preparations, is viewed by supporters as a necessary step to preserve French culture and fight what they see as separatist tendencies among Muslims. But the ban set off protests in Paris and several other cities, and has left many Muslims, including those in this heavily immigrant community near Lyon, worried about their rights as French citizens.

Karima, 31, who was born in France and asked to be referred to only by her first name, has worn the niqab since the age of 15, as a sign of her devotion to God. She says she feels as if France has betrayed her. "It's as if I was married to a man who mistreated me, but I'm still in love with him," she said. "It's as if he had an identity crisis, and I would still stay with him, after 31 years of marriage."

Police do not have the authority under the law to remove full veils, only to fine or require citizenship lessons for those who violate the new law by wearing them in public. Police also showed few signs of moving quickly to enforce the new rules for fear of causing unrest in big cities with Muslim communities.

"The law will be infinitely difficult to enforce and will be infinitely rarely enforced," said Manuel Roux, a union leader for local police chiefs, to France Inter radio.

Patrice Ribeiro, general secretary of Synergie Officiers, a police union, said the law "is a source of trouble more than anything else." In areas with large immigrant populations, he said in an interview, the law cannot be carried out strictly: "We'll create riots." He said the matter would need to be handled with the help of religious authorities.

The issue was set alight in April 2009 by Andre Gerin, then the Communist mayor of Venissieux. Half of the town's 60,000 residents are non-French citizens or their French-born children, and the niqab has been a relatively normal sight here.

Gerin said at the time that the full-facial veil, which is known in France erroneously as the burqa, should be banned in the name of the liberty and equality of women in a secular country. On Monday, in his office, Gerin said the burqa was "just the tip of the iceberg" of the spread of Muslim radicalism and separatism that threatened the French Republic.

The law does not mention Islam or women. It bans the covering of the face in any public place, including shops and the street, as a security measure. A clause says that anyone who forces a woman to cover her face can be imprisoned up to a year and fined up to 30,000 euros, about $43,000.

But the law is a "a point of departure," said Gerin, who retired as mayor but remains a member of the National Assembly. Speaking of young Muslim women who refuse to participate in school sports, or Muslim men who refuse to allow a male doctor to treat their wives or who allegedly compel their wives to veil, Gerin called the law "a wake-up call," a means "to eradicate this minority of fundamentalists, 'the gurus,' who instrumentalize Islam for political reasons."


Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/04/12/2217002/muslims-see-prejudice-in-veil.html#ixzz1JHUtp7WQ