Islamophobia seems to start fearing the European countries. And in the race to ban the Islamic Burqas, after France and Belgium, Holland has become the latest European country to consider ban on Islamic burqas.
If it comes into force, Muslim women would be outlawed from wearing the veils in places such as schools, hospitals and on public transport. Although, factually only a few hundred Muslim women in the Netherlands do wear the concealing niqabs or full-face burqas, but successive governments have still sought to ban the garments.
What Holland Interior Minister said on considering the Ban on Islamic Burqas?
Holland Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said the Dutch proposal did not go as far as the complete bans in those countries. He called the legislation ‘religion-neutral,’ but conceded that the debate about people wearing burqas on Dutch streets had played a major role in the proposal.
Plasterk said that in a free country like the Netherlands people should be allowed to appear in public with their faces covered if they want to. But he added that in government buildings and in health and education settings such as hospitals and schools, people need to be able to look each other in the face.
It was not immediately clear when lawmakers would vote on the issue of Ban on Islamic Burqas.
If the legislation passes Parliament’s lower house as expected, it must also be approved by the Senate before becoming law. A small group of people wearing full-face veils watched the debate from the public gallery.
Independent lawmaker Jacques Monasch, called the burqa ‘a symbol of oppression of women’ and objected to the presence of the veiled spectators in the gallery.
But one opponent of the legislation, Fatma Koser Kaya of the centrist D66 party, said the law was unnecessary because many institutions in the Netherlands already have independent authority to stop women from wearing burqas and niqabs in certain situations. ‘What are we banning today?’ she asked. ‘This is symbolic lawmaking … because in practice it already happens.’
