Italy follows France with a bid to ban the burqa

[Al-khiyal]

Italy follows France with a bid to ban the burqa

February 1, 2010 -- Burqas will be banned in Italy under laws proposed by the government yesterday. Legislation to stop Muslim women wearing the hood and other full-face veils such as the niqab will be introduced, equal opportunities minister Mara Carfagna said. France is already considering outlawing burqas and Miss Carfagna believes other European countries will follow suit. She said: 'This is about a sacrosanct battle to defend the dignity and rights of immigrant women. 'A law is being studied that would ban the use of a burqa and niqab, which are not religious symbols - that's not us saying it, but the top religious authorities of the Islamic world, like the imams of Cairo and Paris. I completely agree with the French initiative, which I think will push other European countries and hence, also Italy, to enact laws on this issue.' Critics see the burqa as a symbol of the subjugation of women. A poll this week found 71 per cent of Italians are in favour of a ban. Italian Muslim groups say they advise women against wearing face veils but that a ban would be an attack on personal freedom.

[Al-khiyal]

Woman fined for wearing burqa in Italy

May 4, 2010 -- Italian police have fined a woman 500 euros ($A712) for wearing a full Islamic veil - the first punishment of its kind in Italy but the latest in a wave of sanctions against the burqa in Europe. The 26-year-old Tunisian woman was walking in a street in the northwestern city of Novara on Monday when she was stopped by a patrol, local police said. "City police ticketed her last night and she will have to pay a 500-euro ($A712) fine," Novara municipal police official Mauro Franzinelli told AFP. "As far as I know this is a first in Italy." The woman was stopped by police outside a post office as she was walking with her husband. The husband produced identity documents for the couple but refused demands by the male officers for the woman to lift her veil so she could be identified. Police then called in another patrol which included a woman officer to carry out the face check.

Franzinelli, who is also a local official for the anti-immigration Northern League, said the city had adopted a decree in January banning the burqa in public. He said the interior ministry was aware of the ban and its comments had been taken into account. Novara, in the Piedmont region, is a stronghold of the Northern League, a key party in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government. "It's a security problem. In a civilised community, people cannot walk around completely covered. How do they think they are going to integrate into our community with such habits?" Novara's Northern League mayor, Massimo Giordano, was quoted as saying by La Stampa daily. "Husbands must acknowledge that in Italy, a woman is a man's equal, freedom is fundamental and there must be mutual respect in a family," the mayor added. The question of whether to ban the burqa is a topic that has divided the Italian government however. The Northern League has proposed a law ordering a complete ban punishable by a 2,000 euro fine, but the bill has never been debated. While there is no specific legislation on the burqa, covering the face in public - even with a motorcycle helmet - has been banned in Italy since 1975. Northern League-controlled cities have used this law in the past to ban Islamic veils.

Belgium became the first country to pass a national ban on the burqa last Thursday and France's national assembly is soon to debate a ban sought by President Nicolas Sarkozy. The French debate took a new twist last month when police fined a woman in Nantes for driving while wearing a burqa. The woman is refusing to pay the fine, while the government says it is also investigating her husband, who runs a halal butcher shop in the northwestern city, over allegations of polygamy. One minister has suggested the Algerian-origin husband should be stripped of his French nationality. The husband has said he has "mistresses" but not the four wives that media reports have claimed. Muslim leaders and rights groups have already criticised Belgium's law. But a senior German member of the European parliament and ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Sunday for all of Europe to follow Belgium's lead and ban the full Islamic veil in public. "I wish that Germany - and all of Europe - would also outlaw the wearing of the burqa in all its forms," said Silvana Koch-Mehrin, European parliament vice-president and a member of Germany's Free Democrats (FDP), Merkel's junior coalition partner. "The burqa is a massive attack on women's rights, it is a mobile prison," she said in a commentary for the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

[Serenity]

This is getting out of hand now.

'''This is about a sacrosanct battle to defend the dignity and rights of immigrant women. 'A law is being studied that would ban the use of a burqa and niqab, which are not religious symbols - that's not us saying it, but the top religious authorities of the Islamic world, like the imams of Cairo and Paris.''

Well the only ''top religious cleric'' who actually agreed with the banning of the veil was Tantawi of Cairo he was a very very controversial cleric who had that tyrant Mubarak influence his fatwas. But other than that I have not seen any other cleric speak for the ban. There may a very very small minority of so-called Imams who support this smear-campaign against muslim women but to say there is support from the Islamic world is misleading and a lie. But the world Ulema definitely oppose these systematic bans.

It would be funny if a world pandemic broke out and everyone would have to wear face masks. Then these stupid bans would go out the window.

[Al-khiyal]

بزعم دعم وتشجيع الاندماج بين الشعوب
مشروع قانون لمنع ارتداء النِّقاب بإيطاليا

تقدّمَت سيمونا فيكاري، عضو مجلس الشيوخ عن حزب ''شعب الحريات'' الحاكم في إيطاليا إلى المجلس بمشروع قانون لمنع ارتداء النقاب في الأماكن العامة. وقالت فيكاري في تعليق لها على تلك الخطوة: ''إنّنا بهذا القانون لا نتراجع عن مشروع الاندماج بين الشعوب بل إنّنا نشجّعه ولكن مَن يعيش في بلد عليه أن يتّبِع قواعده''، وفق زعمها.

وذكرت وكالة ''آكي'' الإيطالية للأنباء أنّ مشروع القانون المقدم عبارة عن تعديل على القانون 152 لسنة 1975 والخاص بمنع تغطية الوجه في الأماكن العامة والّذي كان قد صدر ضدّ المافيا ولا يحدّد ما هو المكان العام ولا ينص على النِّقاب صراحة.

وبحسب النائبة سيمونا فيكاري فإنّ التّعديل المقترح يُحدِّد المكان العام بكلّ ما هو ليس سكنًا خاصًا، كما ينص كذلك على منع ارتداء الأزياء الّتي تغطي الوجه.

يُذكَر أنّه في الشهر الماضي، أعلنت سيدة مصرية الأصل -حرّرت السلطات الإيطالية محضرًا ضدّها لارتدائها النقاب في مكان عام في مدينة تورينو شمالي إيطاليا- رغبتها العودة إلى بلدها مصر لشعورها أنّها ''محبوسة''.

وقالت السيدة وتدعى فاطمة شمس الدين: ''قرّرتُ العودة إلى مصر، كنت أنوي العيش بإيطاليا، ولهذا كنت أذهب إلى مدرسة لتعلّم اللغة الإيطالية، لكنّني الآن أشعر أنّني مسجونة ولهذا قرّرتُ العودة إلى مصر'' وفق كلامها، وقد تعرّضَت السيدة للتّوقيف بينما كانت تتنزّه بوسط تورينو بصحبة زوجها عندما أبلغ عنها بعض المارة رجال الشرطة، لكونها منقبة؛ حيث تمّ تحرير محضر ضدّها، وتواجه الآن الغرامة أو الحبس أو ربّما حفظ المحضر حسب ما ستقرره النيابة.

وقبل ذلك وفي ماي الماضي غرّمت السلطات الإيطالية سيدة مسلمة ترتدي النقاب في مدينة نوفارا شمال غربي إيطاليا وذلك تنفيذًا لأمر صادر عن عمدة المدينة في جانفي الماضي بحظر ارتدائه، كأوّل حالة في البلاد.

وكانت المرأة المنتقبة وهي من أصل تونسي تقف مع زوجها أمام مكتب بريد عندما حاولت دورية من الشرطة التّحقّق من هويتها، ورفض الزوج أن يفتّش رجال الشرطة زوجته حتّى وصلت دورية ثانية من شرطة البلدية كان بين عناصرها امرأة فأجرت التفتيش.

وإثر ذلك برزَت دعوات لحظر النقاب في أرجاء البلاد، لتكون إيطاليا في طريقها إلى السير على خطى بلجيكا، الّتي كانت أوّل دولة أوروبية تحظر ارتداء النقاب في الأماكن العامة بما فيها الشوارع.

تجدر الإشارة إلى أنّ قانون 152 مازال ساري المفعول ويقضى بمعاقبة الشّخص الّذي يضبط بغطاء الوجه بالسجن من سنة إلى سنتين أو غرامة من ألف إلى ألفي يورو.