Shipbucket

7 October 2010 Last updated at 12:42 ET
French veil ban clears last legal hurdle

France's constitutional court has approved the law set to ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.

It approved it almost in its entirety, making one small change: the law will not apply to public places of worship where it may violate religious freedom.

The proposed measure had already been passed by parliament. It is due to come into force next spring.
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* French Senate approves veil ban
* Making veil-wearers criminals

The ban has strong public support, but critics point out that only a handful of French Muslims wear the full veil.

The law makes it illegal to wear garments such as the niqab or burka, which incorporate a full-face veil, anywhere in public.

Under the ban, persons found wearing a full veil in public will face a fine of 150 euros (£130) and/or a citizenship course.

Those found to force women to wear a full veil will face a 30,000-euro fine and a one-year jail term.
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PATH TO VEIL BAN

* Review: French Constitutional Council studies new law once it is ratified
* Introduction: Takes effect six months after ratification
* Ruling: Challenge possible through the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg

* Face-veil driver fined in France

A last challenge is possible at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where decisions are binding.

Under the law, there is a six-month period of "education" to explain to women already wearing a face veil that they face arrest and a fine if they continue to do so in public spaces.

There are estimated to be only about 2,000 women wearing the full veil in France.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed the ban as part of a wider debate on French identity, but opponents say the government is pandering to far-right voters.

Spain and Belgium are debating similar legislation.

French burqa ban clears last legal obstacle
By the CNN Wire Staff
October 7, 2010 3:19 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- France's law banning the burqa and other Islamic face coverings in public places is legal, top constitutional authorities in France ruled Thursday, clearing the final hurdle before the ban goes into effect.

The ban passed both houses of the French legislature by overwhelming margins earlier this year, and is scheduled to come into effect in the spring.

The law imposes a fine of 150 euros ($190) and/or a citizenship course as punishment for wearing a face-covering veil. Forcing a woman to wear a niqab or a burqa will be punishable by a year in prison or a 15,000-euro ($19,000) fine, the government said, calling it "a new form of enslavement that the republic cannot accept on its soil."

Lawmakers also cited security reasons for forbidding people from covering their faces in public.

The French Constitutional Council said the law did not impose disproportionate punishments or prevent the free exercise of religion in a place of worship, finding therefore that "the law conforms to the Constitution."

A panel of French lawmakers recommended a ban last year, and lawmakers unanimously passed a non-binding resolution in May calling the full-face veil contrary to the laws of the nation.

"Given the damage it produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place," the French government said when it sent the measure to parliament in May.

French people back the ban by a margin of more than four to one, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey earlier this year.

Some 82 percent of people polled approved of a ban, while 17 percent disapproved. That was the widest support the Washington-based think tank found in any of the five countries it surveyed.

Clear majorities also backed burqa bans in Germany, Britain and Spain, while two out of three Americans opposed it, the survey found.

Amnesty International has repeatedly urged France not to impose the ban, saying it violates European human rights law.

The ban pertains to the burqa, a full-body covering that includes a mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil that leaves an opening only for the eyes.

The hijab, which covers the hair and neck but not the face, and the chador, which covers the body but not the face, apparently are not banned by the law.

However, a 2004 law in France bans the wearing or displaying of overt religious symbols in schools -- including the wearing of headscarves by schoolgirls.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that France has about 3.5 million Muslims, or about 6 percent of the population.

France does not keep its own statistics on religious affiliation of the population, in keeping with its laws requiring the state to be strictly secular.

Great, more victimless crime laws. And they threw in religious persecution too! It must have come free.

The only crime here is statist violence against people choosing what to wear.




Pictured: Oppressed man in religious crime clothes.

[The burka is]not a piece of fabric but the political manipulation of a religion that enslaves women and disputes the principal of equality between men and women, one of the founding principles of our republic. It also represents the oppression of women, their enslavement, their humiliation. In addition to sexual oppression and poverty, Muslim women suffer a third form of oppression - extreme religiosity.

If oppression is believing something that French Urban Regeneration Minister Fadela Amara disagrees with, then I am being oppressed too, by myself, and I am glad of it.

So you honestly don't see how a garment that covers the entire body can dehumanize women? You don't see how that would be oppressive?

The Opinions of a French-Algerian Muslim wouldn't hold any water with you, because you're a troll (or at least you come off as one over IRC).

They don't look oppressed to me.