Right: Australian anti-burqa organisations deliver their message in many ways, including on T-shirts such as this one. (The un-needed apostrophe seems to indicate that this particular shirt was printed in haste.)
 Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Arguments against segregating those wearing burkas and niqabs
1. Other security procedures make the proposed segregation provisions unnecessary
It has been claimed that existing security procedures make the proposed segregation provisions unnecessary with regard to concerns about dangerous items possibly concealed in clothing.
Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, has noted, 'Those who have visited Parliament will know that entry requires a person to pass through a security check.'
Mr Soutphommasane further explained, 'People must pass through a metal detector and subject their personal items to an X-ray examination.'
Critics of the segregation provision claim that these standard procedures should allay any fears regarding concealed weapons being carried by anyone entering Parliament House.
With regard to concerns over identity, the new security controls stipulate that anyone receiving a pass to enter the private areas of Parliament House would have to show photo ID.
A Department of Parliamentary Security (DPS) spokesperson has noted, with regard to the ID checks that are stipulated for access to private areas by those wearing burkas or niqabs, 'Procedures are in place to ensure that DPS Security manage any cultural or religious issues relating to this in a sensitive and appropriate manner.'
The leader of the Greens, Senator Christine Milne, has stated, 'Security screening already applies to everyone entering Parliament House.
In airports and courts culturally appropriate screening protocols already exist which only require women to temporarily remove the burqa for identification purposes.'
In other new security arrangements, adult visitors being signed in by passholders, including journalists, staffers and bureaucrats, will also have to show ID, including those wearing burkas. Currently, they can be signed in without showing any proof of who they are.
If it is judged necessary to need to have identified all visitors in the public galleries, including those not behind glass barriers, all that is required is that women wearing niqabs or burkas be asked to show photo ID and reveal their faces. If need be, this can be done in a private area by appropriate staff.
2. If seen as a real threat, the women should not be put in an area used by children
It has been claimed that placing women wearing burkas and niqabs in an area usually reserved for schoolchildren reveals the inappropriateness of this measure as any sort of counter-terrorist action.
In an opinion piece published in The Conversation on October 3, 2014,
Nick O'Brien, former head of International Counter Terrorism in Special Branch at New Scotland Yard and now Associate Professor of Counter Terrorism at Charles Sturt University stated, 'There is ... [an] obvious anomaly. These women who are a security concern are being made to sit with ... schoolchildren!'
Professor O'Brien went on to state, 'But there are more problems. The glass boxes were apparently designed to cut out the noise from chattering youngsters as they watch our parliamentarians debating the issues of the day. So presumably the glass isn't resistant to explosives.
So take the worst-case scenario. A burqa-wearing suicide bomber concealing explosives round her neck and head takes her place in the glass box and at the appropriate moment detonates her device. The resulting explosion would likely kill the schoolchildren in the box. It would also turn the glass into deadly shrapnel, sending shards into the parliamentary chamber and endangering the lives of the parliamentarians and the Speaker ... who introduced the segregation rule.'
Professor O'Brien's comments seem designed to highlight the apparent absurdity of the current segregation policy on any genuine counter-terrorism grounds.
3. The measure discriminates against women on the basis of their gender and religious belief
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick has suggested that the interim rule could be open to a legal challenge and is likely to be in breach of the 'trifecta' of human rights - on the basis of sex, race and religious grounds.
In an interview given to the ABC morning program, News Breakfast, on October 3, 2014, Elizabeth Broderick stated, 'It's discriminatory to treat women less favourably based on their gender, of course based on race, and also it's about their religious beliefs. That is a form of freedom of expression... This measure absolutely targets a group and that is women and it's Muslim women, because it is Muslim women who predominantly and disproportionately will be affected by this measure.'
Ms Broderick has gone on to suggest that 'It could be in breach of our federal law [prohibiting discrimination]; ultimately it's for a court to decide that, but it could be.'
Ms Broderick has further noted that it is inappropriate to compare women wearing burkas or niqabs with others wearing either motorbike helmets or balaclavas.
Ms Broderick has stated, 'A woman who chooses to wear the hijab, the burka, the niqab, is a woman who has a strong religious faith and it's about her freedom to practice a religious belief and also its about the fact that she should be free to choose what it is that she wears so it is quite different to people coming in with motorcycle helmets, with balaclavas...It is no business of government to tell women what they should wear.'
Ms Broderick went on to explain that such measures had the capacity to exacerbate anti-Muslim feeling within the general community and to further impinge on the rights of Muslim women.
Ms Broderick stated, 'This is at a time when Muslim women, many of them, are fearful about travelling. They are suffering increased verbal abuse, being spat on; many of them are not even leaving their houses. Why would we elevate that to a national level?...There is no question that many of them have an increased anxiety and fear and that is another reason I think we should be doing everything to ensure everyone is included.'
4. The measure is likely to feed prejudice against Muslims
Concern has been expressed that by focusing on the 'facial covering' that is worn for a religious purpose by only Muslim women, the action of the Speaker and Senate President appears to sanction others to treat Muslims with prejudice.
Dr Jamal Rifi, a founder of Australian Muslim Doctors Against Violence, has stated in regard to the segregation of women wearing burkas and niqabs, 'You have given a voice to the extremists and the radicals and the racists.'
It was reported in The Canberra Times on October 3 that The Rise Up Australia Party (RUAP) had circulated an email promising to confront Muslim women wearing face cover.
Daniel Nalliah of RUAP stated, 'We welcome the media to join us sometime next week as we take to the streets of Victoria to check this out...RUAP [will meet] up with the general public to ask the question, "Do you support the burqa Ban??" and also speak to Muslim woman with the Burqa and ask them to show their face??'
It was also reported in the Canberra Times on October 3 that the day before a female leader in the Muslim community had received a phone call from a man who threatened, 'I know where you live, and I'm coming around to cut your head off.'
Some social commentators have expressed the view that actions such as the segregation proposed for Muslim women threaten social cohesion. This segregation implies that Muslims are dangerous. At a time when community fears have been provoked by the actions of the extremist ISIL group, it has been suggested that the parliamentary segregations tells the broader Australian community that there is reason to fear Muslims, all Muslims, including Muslim women, in this case simply because they are wearing traditional dress.
The leader of the Greens, Christine Milne, has warned of risks to the 'social fabric' of Australia, urging people to consider the racial tensions that led to the Cronulla riots in Sydney in 2005.
Senator Milne has stated, 'This decision gives a signal to the whole country that it's OK to treat Muslim women as second-class citizens, and it is not. It is wrong.'
In a speech given on October 2, 2014, the leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, stated, 'Wrapping a call to "ban the burqa" around national security is an attempt to make ignorance sound truthful and intolerance respectable - an attempt to give an appearance of solidity to hot air.
Diminishing the real and important security debate to a conversation about an article of clothing diminishes us all. And it makes Muslim women a target for bullying and intimidation.'
5. The measure is likely to promote a sense of exclusion within the Muslim community
It has been suggested that measures such as the segregation of Muslim women within the federal Parliament will cause the whole Muslim community to feel as though they have been excluded from mainstream Australian society.
The chief executive of the Arab Council of Australia, Randa Kattan, stated on the day the burka segregation decision was announced, 'The prime minister says on one hand that he wants everyone on "Team Australia", but at the same time, we see something like today's decision. It isolates women ever further. It's a clear message that women in society are targeted and Muslim women more so.'
Hayfa Bakour, a 17-year-old student living in Greenacre New South Wales, who wears a hijab, was reported in an ABC News report on October 2, 2014, as saying, '[The reported targeting of Muslim women] is a bit scary. It actually makes me more scared to walk around. Nothing has happened to me directly. Now my mum always says make sure you're never alone, always leave the library with someone, with one of my girlfriends. When I was younger I thought I was lucky to live in Australia. But now hearing all these terrible stories of woman being abused is really confronting.'
This sense of fear, isolation and exclusion was expressed by Anisa Khan, a fifth generation Australian, but also a devout Muslim who has been wearing the niqab since 2001.
In response to the segregation provision recently imposed on those wearing facial coverings in federal Parliament, Anisa Khan stated, "I think if this continues in such a way, it's going to come to a point where it's going to be hard to call Australia home. And it's very hard to be put in that situation when you're a fifth generation Australian, you're born and raised here, and you don't see anything outside as home apart from Australia.'
It has been noted that this feeling of being excluded from Australian public life is likely to be felt by many, if not all, Muslims, despite the fact that only a small number of Muslims wear the niqab or the burka.
In an article published in The Guardian on October 3, 2014, Gabrielle Chan stated, 'The Muslim community were left feeling more marginalised, even though only a tiny percentage wear the niqab.'