05 May DeGirolami on Banning the Burqa
05.05.10
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2 Comments
My colleague Marc DeGirolami has a guest post over at PrawfsBlawg reacting to an op-ed in today’s New York Times by Jean-François Copé, the the majority leader of the French National Assembly, in which Copé defends banning the burqa and the niqab. While Marc sees that the argument that the burqa runs counter to Western culture “is not without considerable force” (as he put it in a response to a comment), he nonetheless finds that “there is the distinct odor of self-deluding dishonesty about this op-ed” and that Copé’s argument is “doubly false.” Check it out…
I live in an area of the country with a significant population of Americans who are Muslim. I consistently here the response from Muslim women that the headdress is a sign of modesty. Maybe there is oppression associated it with it, but I would like to hear that coming from the diverse persons of the Muslim community before I would give much credence to what right wing French politicians are arguing.
As Sarkozy did not do so well in the recent elections, this smells like “playing the Muslim” card again in France to gin up the right – much like the Arizona law here was to “play the illegal immigrant” card to gin up the right here.
Best,
Ben
I wrote about this interesting topic some weeks ago in my Blog. http://jurisnovus.blogspot.com/2010/04/prohibiendo-la-burka-francia-y-el.html
Although in Spanish, I am confident you will be able to find a good translator and see my arguments. To sum up, particularly interesting is the legal opinion of the French Council of State, saying that there is no legal basis for the government to ban the burqa, mainly because the State cannot interfere in the religious beliefs of its citizen, and the supposed risk of using the burqa for security purposes, is not enough to ban it, taking into account the prohibition of discrimination under international law.
Additionally, it is worth noticing that the Council of State, perfectly balanced the different rights of the French society, saying that there are specific situations, i.e. using public transportation, banking services and picking up children of school, in which it would be reasonable to ask woman to remove the burqa.
For more details, don’t miss my post!!!