Right: Click the image at right to open a new window to a video discussion from the ABC's "Big Ideas" library, Should we ban the burka? When the page opens, read the page notes, then choose whether you wish to view the whole program, or highlights from it.
Background information
(The following is a slightly edited version of the Wikipedia entry for 'Burqa'. The full text of the entry can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa)A burqa is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions to hide a woman's body when she is out in public. It is worn over the usual daily clothing and removed when the woman returns to her home and is out of the view of men who are not her husband or members of her immediate family.
The burqa is usually understood to be the woman's loose body-covering (Arabic: jilbab), plus the head-covering (Arabic: hijab, taking the most usual meaning), plus the face-veil (Arabic: niqab). The face-veil portion is usually a rectangular piece of semi-transparent cloth whose top side is sewn to the corresponding portion of the head-scarf, so that the veil hangs down loose from the scarf, and can be turned up if the woman wishes to reveal her face (otherwise the whole face is covered). In other cases, the niqab can be a side-attached cloth which covers the face below the eye region.
Many Muslims believe that the Islamic holy book, the Koran, and the collected traditions of the life of Muhammed, require both men and women to dress and behave modestly in public. However, this requirement, called hijab, has been interpreted in many different ways by Islamic scholars and Muslim communities.
The Koran has been translated as stating: 'Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the faithful to draw their outergarments close around themselves; that is better that they will be recognized and not annoyed.'
Controversies involving the burqa
Face-covering clothing has become a controversial political issue in Western Europe, and some intellectuals and political groups have called for the prohibition of the burqa.
Clothing that covers a woman's face is currently causing controversy in the United Kingdom. A senior member of the government, Jack Straw, has asked Muslim women from his constituency to remove any veils covering their faces during face-to-face meetings with him. He explained to the media that this was a request, not a demand, and that he made sure that a woman staffer remained in the room during the meeting. A media furor followed. Some Muslim groups said that they understood his concerns, but others rejected them as the product of prejudice.
Wearing the burqa has been banned in French public schools since 2004, as the result of a law that prohibits students wearing any clearly visible religious symbols. This was followed on 22 June 2009, by the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, stating that burqas were 'not welcome' in France. The President further stated, 'In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity'.
The French National Assembly appointed 32 lawmakers from right- and left-wing parties to a six-month fact-finding mission to look at ways of restricting its use. On 26 January 2010, the commission reported that access to public services and public transport should be barred to those wearing the burqa.
The Netherlands is likely to propose a country-wide ban as well.
On 29 April 2010, the lower house of parliament in Belgium passed a bill banning from streets and parks the wearing of any clothing that would obscure the identity of the wearer. The proposal is now to go to the Senate. The BBC estimates that 'Only around 30 women wear this kind of veil in Belgium, out of a Muslim population of around half a million.'
In Europe, several crimes have been committed by men or women using a burqa as a disguise in order to break into buildings. One such incident occurred on 6 May 2010, in Bury, when a robbery occurred in a jewellery shop. There were five robbers, the first of whom tricked the shopkeeper while wearing the full garment and then let his friends into the shop.