Hugh Fitzgerald: Is the Niqab Ban Really “A Violation of Human Rights”?

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GENEVA (Reuters) – The U.N. Human Rights Committee said on October 22  that France’s ban on the niqab, the full-face Islamic veil, was a violation of human rights and called on it to review the legislation.

France had failed to make the case for its ban, the committee said, and gave Paris 180 days to report back to say what actions it had taken.

“In particular, the Committee was not persuaded by France’s claim that a ban on face covering was necessary and proportionate from a security standpoint or for attaining the goal of ‘living together’ in society,” it said.

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The panel of 18 independent experts oversees compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Implementation of its decisions is not mandatory, but under an optional protocol of the treaty, France has an international legal obligation to comply “in good faith”.

The French ban was not on the niqab alone, but on all coverings of the face, no matter what kind: kerchiefs, balaclavas, burqas. There were two main reasons given by the French for their law. The first, and most important, was security. It is impossible to identify people who are wearing the niqab or burka. These have been used too often in the commission of crimes. Suicide bombers, murderers, jewel thieves, “honor” killers, throwers-of-acid, bank robbers, street criminals, have all been known to wear niqabs. or burkas, to remain unidentifiable. In one city, Philadelphia, there  have been more than two dozen cases of criminals wearing the niqab or burka (a full face-and-body covering, with a mesh veil over the eyes) while committing their crimes.

The niqab and burqa full-face veils have been banned not just in France, but in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and in such largely-Muslim lands as Chad, Cameroon, Morocco, Niger, and Congo-Brazzaville, with partial bans in a dozen other countries in Europe and Africa, including the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey. There have been many high-profile crimes involving niqabs. An embezzler escaped from Dubai wearing a niqab. Three thieves were buzzed into a jewelry store in London, all wearing burqas, where they proceeded to rob and kill the store owner; in London, someone who threw acid in the face of a girl wore a niqab that allowed him/her to escape identification; niqab-wearers have murdered people in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Chad, Cameroon.

A French foreign ministry spokesman said the law was legitimate, necessary and respected religious freedom. The ban applies to hiding one’s face, not to any type of religious clothing that leaves the face uncovered, he told reporters.

The French spokesman also pointed out that both France’s constitutional court and the European Court of Human Rights, whose rulings are binding, had upheld the full-face veil ban, saying it did not violate religious freedom.

The European Court of Human Rights upheld the burqa/niqab ban in 2014, ruling that banning the veil does not breach human rights. Apparently that was not authoritative enough for the U.N.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee disagreed with this in its statement on October saying the ban disproportionately harmed the right of women to manifest their religious beliefs and could lead to them being confined at home and marginalized.

So the threat to security is deemed less of a worry than the possibility that a Muslim woman might be “confined at home and marginalized.” There are ways to handle that problem through the legal system. It can be made illegal for anyone to confine a woman at home because of her dress. If Muslim men don’t like this law, perhaps they will reconsider whether they want to remain in a land where the Infidels still write the laws. As for women being “marginalized”in the larger society because they cannot go out in their niqabs, surely wearying the niqab is itself the strongest possible sign of self-marginalization. It signals that the wearer is a devout Muslim, does not wish to “take Christians or Jews as friends, for they are friends only with each other,” and knows that the Unbelievers are “the most vile of created beings.” It’s not the banning, but the wearing, of the niqab that creates marginalization. Muslim women who do not cover are much more likely to integrate, even if only partially, into a non-Muslim society.

The committee’s findings follow complaints by two French women convicted in 2012 under a 2010 law stipulating that “No one may, in a public space, wear any article of clothing intended to conceal the face”.

Nothing is said about the niqab. The ban refers to “any article of clothing intended to conceal the face.”

In its findings the panel called on France to pay the two women compensation.

Under the ban, anyone wearing the full-face veil in public is liable to a fine of 150 euros ($170) or lessons in French citizenship. According to Metronews media, 223 fines were handed out in 2015 for wearing a full veil in public.

Other countries in Europe have introduced legislation on Islamic dress. Denmark’s parliament enacted a ban on wearing of face veils in public in May. Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria have also imposed some restrictions on full-face veils in public places.

France has the largest Muslim minority in Europe, estimated at 5 million or more out of a population of 67 million. The place of religion and religious symbols worn in public can be a matter of controversy in the staunchly secular country.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee came to similar conclusions on the 2008 case of a woman sacked by a creche for wearing a veil. In September, a top French judge was quoted by newspaper Le Monde as saying that while not binding, the panel’s decisions might still influence French case law.

The refusal of the U.N. Human Rights Committee to take seriously the security concerns of the French government, concerns which are shared by many other countries, including several that are Muslim, that have similarly banned the niqab and burqa — when there has been so much evidence to justify that concern — is maddening. Fortunately, the U.N. Human Rights Committee’s ruling is not mandatory and, one hopes that the French government, free to ignore it, will do just that.

If a Muslim woman cannot go out in public in France unless she wears a niqab, that is her problem — and her husband’s. It is not a reason for the French state to let down its guard against the real and present danger of niqabbed criminals. She and her husband may find that as a  consequence, France is not for them. In which case: Bon Voyage.

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Navy_Vet
Navy_Vet
5 years ago

The niqab should be banned. Do you know how many female children get mistakenly thrown in the back of garbage trucks on garbage pickup day because they look like bags of garbage on the sidewalk?

chris VN
chris VN
5 years ago
Reply to  Navy_Vet

You just put forward a very good reason NOT to ban the niqab / burqa.

taxpayer22
taxpayer22
5 years ago

Islamic headscarf is a shroud of death for a free society, says former radical Feminist Zana Ramadani.

Being born a Muslim herself, Ramadani is fearful of her life after receiving countless death threats from Muslims in Germany.. after telling the truth about Islam..

Suresh
Suresh
5 years ago
Reply to  taxpayer22

Agree. while Left/liberal pro-jihadi run EU is turning into islamic hellhole with more jihadi attacks Trump is shutting down jihadi funding that has been running for decades now https://tinyurl.com/ya4gdwt3

Left/Liberal Loons say that makes him “racist” , “islamophobe” . Guess what ? Trump gives a damn . LOL !

Scott
Scott
5 years ago

women are sub human and only fit for rape, so no.

mudpuppy6
mudpuppy6
5 years ago
Reply to  Scott

My same feeling, as a woman, that the libs who support them are very stupid and nutz.

gfmucci .
gfmucci .
5 years ago

Yes, it is…just as much as calling out a Muslim for violent jihad, doncha know.

R. Arandas
R. Arandas
5 years ago

The Western feminists will jump to defend the niqab any day now, they already love the hijab so much…

Poppey
Poppey
5 years ago

That niqab, burkha and even their wretched headscarf are “just pieces of cloth” and harmless in the same way a KKK hood and cloak or an SS uniform are “just pieces of cloth” and harmless, all point to the unacceptable political beliefs of the person inside.

To attack and prevail over political Islam with its running dog Islamic terror, you attack it right at the base, their identity, beliefs and practices, and when such “religious practices” include throwing acid over a western woman for not covering up or grabbing her for a sexual assault, western society has an obligation to get angry, confront the scum and change what they are and do OR better still get them out one way or another.

Our females do NOT have to submit to being raped to show how tolerant they are of muslims and Islam.

The human rights of all women and girls in the west trump muslims being offended, enough of this rubbish.

Clem Jackson
Clem Jackson
5 years ago

Well well, the same UN force that walked away from a compound in Rewanda knowing their actions would lead to the nass murder of those inside.
Further for their information the burka has nothing to do with religion. It was implimented by men to subjugate woman in the islamic ideology, period.

leonore35
leonore35
5 years ago

“or attaining the goal of ‘living together’ in society”, That is precisely the point how does it facilitate the goal of living together if one section of the population conceals their faces? It has been proven scientifically that seeing the face of your fellow men/women is a vital part of human communication. The niqab etc is also an alien concept in Western societies. Of course Muslims for the most part reject the liberal values of the West and demand sharia laws, Also we know that the type of Muslim who does this does not want to be a part of society. or to communicate with it so how does that help the goal of living together? These committees of ‘experts’ seem more like idiots or left wing ideologues who do not understand the contradictions they utter.

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago

Tiptoeing around a common sense problem. You’re in the West now. You do what we say or beat it. You can always return to your own land and show them what a good Moslem you are.

We here in the West could care less what constitutes a good Moslem.

OverIt
OverIt
5 years ago

You say ‘We here in the West could care less what constitutes a good Moslem.’

Speak for yourself. Everybody I know could NOT care less…

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago
Reply to  OverIt

Your reiterating what I’m saying. Duhhh…..

OverIt
OverIt
5 years ago

No, I’m saying the opposite of what you’re saying. You said you COULD care less (ie you do care to at least some degree, because it is possible for you to care less than you do). I’m saying that everybody I know COULD NOT care less. In other words, it is NOT possible to care any less than we do. See the difference yet?

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago
Reply to  OverIt

No, I didn’t say “you” I said the “West”.

But I like mine better. Thanks for your input.

OverIt
OverIt
5 years ago

Hahahahaha, of course you do!

mudpuppy6
mudpuppy6
5 years ago

Muslims don’t believe that women have human rights, they are subservient to man.

Ray - God Bless Israel.
Ray - God Bless Israel.
5 years ago

The United Nations is a Jew hating, muslim loving group

April
April
5 years ago

Both the UN and niqab should be banned.

ninetyninepct
ninetyninepct
5 years ago

Simply ban any face masks or face coverings. Security threat. This has nothing to do with “religion”.

Halal Bacon
Halal Bacon
5 years ago

an ideology based on the perfect pedophile, what could go wrong? /sarc off

CreoleGumbo
CreoleGumbo
5 years ago

The UN needs to be done away with.

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