Bans on full-face Muslim veils are spreading across Europe
Early this month, Denmark became the fifth country in Europe to introduce a ban on face coverings in public places. The policy is widely viewed as being targeted at Muslim women who wear veils such as the niqab.
Despite protests in the capital, Copenhagen, police have started enforcing the law in earnest. On Aug. 3, a 28-year-old wearing the niqab, which covers the entire body except the eyes, was attacked by another Danish woman who tried to pull her veil off, the Guardian reported. Police fined the Muslim woman $156.
Legislation around full-face veils has grown increasingly common in Europe, particularly in the past three years. Six countries have passed nationwide laws that partially or fully ban face veils in public places. The latest is the Netherlands, which voted in June to partially ban face veils in locations such as schools and hospitals, but not on public streets.
France began movement
Several other European countries, including Spain and Italy, have banned them in individual cities and towns, and even more have reviewed proposals for bans at a local or national level.
Widespread calls for legislation outlawing face veils in public places started in France, which in 2011 became the first European country to introduce a nationwide ban. At the time, French President Nicolas Sarkozy argued during a state-of-the-nation address that the burqa — a head-totoe covering with mesh screening the eyes, mainly worn in Afghanistan — was a “sign of subservience and debasement.”
“I want to say solemnly, the burqa is not welcome in France. In our country, we can’t accept women prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity. That’s not our idea of freedom,” Sarkozy said to applause from lawmakers, the Guardian reported.
Another common justification for the ban is that face veils conceal the wearer’s identity, posing a security threat.
In Latvia, for example, where three women among the country’s population of 2 million are estimated to wear the burqa, debates around a proposed ban on face veils have frequently featured concerns over security. In 2016, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the former president of Latvia, told the New York Times that “covering one’s face in public at a time of terrorism presents a danger to society … You could carry a rocket launcher under your veil. It’s not funny.”
Politicians also frequently contend face veils are inconsistent with existing “European values,” mounting what experts describe as a “clash of cultures” argument.
Pending legislation
In 2017, Germany’s then-interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, called for a nationwide ban on face veils in an editorial that stated: “We are an open society. We show our face. We are not burqa.”
Early this year, while Denmark’s Parliament debated the face-veil bill that would later become law, Justice Minister Soren Pape Poulsen contended that a person concealing her face was “disrespectful” to others and “incompatible with the values in Danish society.”
Regardless of the justification, policies governing head veils are likely to grow more prevalent, experts said, particularly as European governments try to stave off the growing influence of rightwing leaders in their countries.
Countries having nationwide or partial bans are France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands. Spain and Italy have some local bans in cities or towns. Legislation is pending for local or national bans in Germany, Latvia, Finland, Switzerland and Luxembourg.