The Washington Post WorldViews From France to Denmark, bans on full-face Muslim veils are spreading across Europe By Rebecca Tan , Foreign reporter August 16 Earlier this month, Denmark became the fifth country in Europe to introduce a ban on face coverings in public places. The policy is widely viewed as being targeted at Muslim women who wear veils such as the niqab. Despite protests in the country’s capital, police have started enforcing the law in earnest. On Aug. 3, a 28-year-old wearing the niqab, which covers the entire body except the eyes, was attacked by another Danish woman who tried to pull her veil off, the Guardian reported. Police fined the Muslim woman $156. Legislation around full-face veils has grown increasingly common in Europe, particularly in the past three years. Six countries have now passed nationwide laws that partially or fully ban face veils in public places. The latest is the Netherlands, which voted in June to partially ban face veils in locations such as schools and hospitals, but not on public streets. CATEGORY COUNTRIES Nationwide bans or partial bans France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands Local bans in cities or towns Spain, Italy, Switzerland No bans, but pending legislation for local or national bans Germany, Latvia, Finland, Luxembourg Several other European countries, including Spain and Italy, have banned them in individual cities and towns, and even more have reviewed proposals for bans at a local or national level. Widespread calls for legislation outlawing face veils in public places started in France, which in 2011 became the first European country to introduce a nationwide ban. At the time, French President Nicolas Sarkozy argued during a state-of-the-nation address that the burqa — a head-to-toe covering with mesh screening the eyes, mainly worn in Afghanistan — was a “sign of subservience and debasement.” "I want to say solemnly, the burqa is not welcome in France. In our country, we can’t accept women prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity. That’s not our idea of freedom,” Sarkozy said to rapturous applause from lawmakers, the Guardian reported. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/rebecca-tan/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/first-woman-fined-in-denmark-for-wearing-full-face-veil https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/22/islamic-veils-sarkozy-speech-france Another common justification for the ban is that face veils conceal the identity of the wearer, posing a security threat. In Latvia, for example, where just three women among the country’s population of 2 million are estimated to wear the burqa, debates around a proposed ban on face veils have frequently featured concerns over security. In 2016, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the former president of Latvia, told the New York Times that “covering one’s face in publi.

1. The Washington Post
WorldViews
From France to Denmark, bans on full-face Muslim veils are
spreading across Europe
By Rebecca Tan
, Foreign reporter
August 16
Earlier this month, Denmark became the fifth country in Europe
to introduce a ban on face coverings in
public places. The policy is widely viewed as being targeted at
Muslim women who wear veils such as
the niqab.
Despite protests in the country’s capital, police have started
enforcing the law in earnest. On Aug. 3, a
28-year-old wearing the niqab, which covers the entire body
except the eyes, was attacked by another
Danish woman who tried to pull her veil off, the Guardian
reported. Police fined the Muslim woman
$156.
Legislation around full-face veils has grown increasingly
common in Europe, particularly in the past
three years. Six countries have now passed nationwide laws that
partially or fully ban face veils in public
places. The latest is the Netherlands, which voted in June to
partially ban face veils in locations such as

2. schools and hospitals, but not on public streets.
CATEGORY COUNTRIES
Nationwide bans or partial bans
France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands
Local bans in cities or towns Spain, Italy, Switzerland
No bans, but pending legislation for local or national bans
Germany, Latvia, Finland, Luxembourg
Several other European countries, including Spain and Italy,
have banned them in individual cities and
towns, and even more have reviewed proposals for bans at a
local or national level.
Widespread calls for legislation outlawing face veils in public
places started in France, which in 2011
became the first European country to introduce a nationwide
ban. At the time, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy argued during a state-of-the-nation address that
the burqa — a head-to-toe covering
with mesh screening the eyes, mainly worn in Afghanistan —
was a “sign of subservience and
debasement.”
"I want to say solemnly, the burqa is not welcome in France. In
our country, we can’t accept women
prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived
of all identity. That’s not our idea of
freedom,” Sarkozy said to rapturous applause from lawmakers,
the Guardian reported.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/rebecca-tan/

3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/04/first-woman-
fined-in-denmark-for-wearing-full-face-veil
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/22/islamic-veils-
sarkozy-speech-france
Another common justification for the ban is that face veils
conceal the identity of the wearer, posing a
security threat.
In Latvia, for example, where just three women among the
country’s population of 2 million are
estimated to wear the burqa, debates around a proposed ban on
face veils have frequently featured
concerns over security. In 2016, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, the
former president of Latvia, told the New York
Times that “covering one’s face in public at a time of terrorism
presents a danger to society. … You
could carry a rocket launcher under your veil. It’s not funny.”
Politicians also frequently contend that face veils are
inconsistent with existing “European values,”
mounting what experts describe as a “clash of cultures”
argument.
In 2017, Germany’s then-interior minister, Thomas de Maizière,
called for a nationwide ban on face
veils in an editorial that stated: “We are an open society. We
show our face. We are not burqa.” Earlier
this year, while Denmark’s Parliament debated the face-veil bill
that would later become law, Justice
Minister Soren Pape Poulsen contended that a person concealing
her face was “disrespectful” to others
and “incompatible with the values in Danish society.”

4. Regardless of the justification, policies governing head veils are
likely to grow more prevalent in the
coming years, particularly as European governments try to stave
off the growing influence of right-wing
leaders in their countries, experts said.
While the percentage of women who wear the niqab or burqa is
tiny in most European countries, said
Akbar Ahmed, a professor at American University, their veils
are visible markers of the Islamic
community that right-wing leaders point to as evidence of the
“Islamization” of Europe.
And as right-wing groups gain more traction, even moderate or
liberal administrations may feel
pressure to make a strategic choice to ban face veils, explained
Asma Uddin, a senior scholar and
faculty member at the Religious Freedom Center of the Freedom
Forum Institute. Perhaps more
importantly, she added, governments in Europe now feel like
they have license to take such steps
because of the legal precedents set by their neighbors.
In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld
the French ban on face veils, ruling
against a 24-year-old Muslim woman who argued that she
wanted to wear her burqa as a matter of
religious freedom. In 2017, the ECHR issued similar decisions
against two Belgian women, ruling that
the country’s ban on face veils does not violate the European
Convention on Human Rights.
As Uddin explained, “We can say all these things about them
violating freedom of religion, but over
there, their own highest court is saying to them, ‘You’re not.
You’re justified in what you’re doing.’ ”

5. This post has been updated with changes to its graphics.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/world/europe/latvia-face-
veils-muslims-immigration.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/30/open-society-
show-face-not-burka-says-german-interior-minister/
Read more:
Struggling to prevent terrorist attacks, France wants to ‘reform’
Islam
Austria shuts down seven mosques in what it says is ‘just the be
ginning’ of a crackdown
For some French officials, the headscarf is such a threat they ar
e attacking a teenager
Rebecca Tan
Born and raised in Singapore, Rebecca Tan is a reporter workin
g on the foreign desk in Washington D.C.
She previously reported on foreign policy and international affa
irs at Vox.com. Follow
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'Now It's a Sign of Protest:' Muslim Women in Denmark
Defy the Face Veil Ban
By KARIS HUSTAD/COPENHAGEN August 2, 2018
Sabina started wearing the niqab two years ago as a way to feel
more connected
to God. The face veil—a piece of fabric tied around the back of
her head that
only reveals her eyes—is a reminder of her identity and beliefs,
she says. “I
found it very beautiful,” the 21-year-old education student
explains, sitting
cross-legged on the floor of the women’s prayer room in Det
Islamiske
Trossamfund, a mosque in Copenhagen. “In the beginning it was
a very

7. spiritual choice.”
But starting this month when she wears her niqab in public, her
act of devotion
will also be an act of civil disobedience. She will be one of the
Danish citizens
defying the country’s ban on face coverings in all public places,
which came
into effect on Wednesday.
“Now it has also become a political choice for me,” says
Sabina, who asked
TIME not to disclose her last name out of concerns for her
safety. “It is also a
sign of protest.”
Sabina is a founder of Kvinder i Dialog (Women in Dialogue),
an organization
started by niqabis—women who wear the veil—that brings
Muslim women
affected by the ban into conversation with the larger Danish
population
through events, social media and public appearances. Their goal
has been to
dispel what they say are misconceptions about their choice to
wear the veil:

8. that niqabis are forced to wear the garment, don’t go to school
or work, and are
radicalized and pose a threat.
http://time.com/author/karis-hustad/
http://www.kvinderidialog.dk/
http://time.com/
Now their aims have expanded to include standing their ground
in Danish
society. On the first day of the ban, the women led a public
protest over their
right to wear the veil. Hundreds of people of different religious
and ethnic
backgrounds congregated at Den Sorte Plads in Copenhagen’s
Nørrebro
neighborhood, donning niqabs, colorful scarves and flamboyant
face coverings
—a horse head, fake beards and lucha libre masks were spotted
across the plaza
—to challenge the enforcement of the ban. The crowd marched
on local streets
led by a sign that read “My clothes, my choice” and chanted
“No racists in our
streets!” as they locked arms around the Bellahøj police station.

9. At the same
time, across the country a protest took place in Aarhus,
Denmark’s second
biggest city.
Many in the crowd said taking to the streets seemed to be the
only way to bring
attention to the problem. “When I was a kid, no one talked
about who you
could be and how you could look and dress,” said Line Schmidt,
33, wearing a
black balaclava with yellow translucent heart-shaped
glasses.“It’s not the
Denmark I know.”
To protesters and women who wear the veil, the ban looks like
another sign
that Denmark is betraying its long-held value of tolerance. “It’s
not just about
us fighting for the right to wear our niqab,” Sabina says. “It’s
also about us
fighting for right to live our lives as practicing Muslims in
Denmark. We are
saying to the government: we do not accept this form of racist,
Islamophobic

10. and oppressive politics.”
Denmark’s new law, passed May 31 to take effect from August
1, does not
specifically mention the niqab (a veil that covers the face
except for the eyes)
or burqa (more conservative headwear that covers the head and
body and
includes a mesh screen over the eyes). It is up to police to judge
whether a face
covering is in violation of the ban and to instruct the offender to
go home.
Fines range from 1,000 krone ($156) up to 10,000 krone
($1,568) for repeat
offenses.
But many of those in support of the ban have been clear that it
is meant to
target the Muslim face veil. “We don’t want the burqa and niqab
in Denmark,”
https://www.economist.com/europe/1999/08/26/testing-danish-
tolerance
Naser Khader, a parliament member with the Conservative
People’s Party and a
Muslim who has long supported the ban, tells TIME. He says

11. it’s about the
principle of women not being oppressed, rather than the number
of women
who wear the veil. “We want gender equality in Denmark, that’s
it. If you want
to go with burqa and niqab, find another place to do it.”
The current number of women who wear the veil in Denmark is
unknown, but
the most recent research suggests it is very few. A 2009 study
by Margit
Warburg, a professor in sociology of religion at the University
of Copenhagen,
indicates less than 0.2% of Muslim women in the country wear
the niqab or
burqa—an estimated 150 women out of a country of 5.7 million.
“It is really a
very small minority out of a minority out of a minority,” says
Warburg.
Human rights groups have slammed arguments like Khader’s.
While there
might be some specific instances where the full-face veil ban
might be
legitimate in the interests of public safety, Amnesty
International argues that

12. the blanket ban is a violation of women’s rights to freedom of
expression and
religion. “If the intention of this law was to protect women’s
rights it fails
abjectly. Instead, the law criminalizes women for their choice of
clothing—
making a mockery of the freedoms Denmark purports to
uphold.”
A Continent-Wide Debate
Denmark follows France, Belgium and Austria with full bans on
face coverings
(Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Germany and other regions and
cities across Europe
have partial bans based on geographical area or type of space).
In 2014 the
European Court of Human Rights upheld France’s 2011 law,
accepting that
social cohesion was a valid argument for the ban, even though
fewer than 2,000
women reportedly wore the veil in 2011, out of nearly 5 million
Muslims in
France.
But enforcement and effectiveness of the ban have been mixed.

13. In Austria,
which implemented a similar law in October 2017, police fined
people with
scarves and a man in a shark costume because of confusion over
the vague
https://hum.ku.dk/faknyt/nyheder_fra_2010/2010/brugen-af-
niqab-og-burka.pdf
https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2018/08/denmark-
face-veil-ban-a-discriminatory-violation-of-womens-rights/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13038095
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/france-burqa-
ban-upheld-human-rights-court
http://library.pcw.gov.ph/sites/default/files/civic%20integration
%20migrant%20women%20and%20the%20veil.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/
09/austria-wanted-to-ban-burqas-now-it-also-fines-mascots-and-
stops-cyclists-who-wear-
scarves/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.eedc6fed2b50
wording of the law. France, the first European country to
introduce such a ban,
has consistently enforced the law—but surveys indicate niqabis
continue to
wear the veil but spend more time indoors (though there is little
research on
women who wear the veil after the ban).
“It divides society,” says Sara Silvestri, professor of religion
and politics at

14. City, University of London, and an expert on Islam in Europe.
“It either
withdraws women into the closely-knit community or empowers
them to fight
back and become even more religious and even more proud to
wear the veil.”
In Denmark both the center-right government and center-left
Social Democrat
party voted in favor of the ban, passing the law 75-30. At the
heart of the
government’s argument were concerns over the subjugation of
women and a
need to enforce Danish culture and values.“We must be able to
see each other
and we must also be able to see each other’s facial
expressions,” Justice
Minister Søren Pape Poulsen said when the ban was passed in
May. “It’s a value
in Denmark.” A significant portion of the Danish population
favored the ban:
62% supported a ban on the niqab and burqa according to an
opinion poll from
last September.

15. Read more: Denmark’s “ghetto” policies are an ominous sign
that liberal
Europe is starting to unravel at the seams
Denmark is still a homogeneous country: 87.6% of the country’s
population is
ethnically Danish and 75% of the population is Protestant
(based off
membership in the state-funded National Church). In recent
decades, the
country has struggled to integrate immigrants and their new
cultures. This year
alone, significant debate has raged over policies that seem to
target minorities.
For example, the country has weighed a citizens’ proposal to
outlaw
circumcision (mainly practiced by the country’s Jews and
Muslims) and the
immigration minister suggested Muslims do not work during
Ramadan because
they pose a safety hazard. And more concretely, the government
passed a series
of laws to eradicate “ghettos,” neighborhoods with social
problems where more
than 50% of residents are non-Western immigrants.

16. https://www.dw.com/en/five-years-into-ban-burqa-divide-
widens-in-france/a-19177275
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/after
-the-ban-experience-full-face-veil-france-20140210.pdf
https://www.thelocal.dk/20180531/danish-parliament-passes-
ban-on-burqa-and-niqab
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44319921
https://www.thelocal.dk/20170929/majority-of-danes-want-to-
ban-burqa-survey
http://time.com/5329100/denmark-ghetto-policies-liberal-
europe/
http://denmark.dk/en/quick-facts/facts
https://www.dst.dk/en/Statistik/emner/kultur-og-
kirke/folkekirken
https://www.thelocal.dk/20180601/danish-circumcision-ban-to-
go-to-parliament
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/21/danish-
politician-inger-stjberg-muslims-ramadan
http://time.com/5328347/denmark-ghettos-policies/
“The parliament decides what it means to be Danish,” says
Garbi Schmidt, a
Roskilde University professor who studies migration and
cultural encounters.
“Right now, it is Muslims that fall out and minorities that fall
out [of that
definition]. But it is also problematic for society—how
xenophobic should it be
when it comes to ethnic, religious and all kinds of diversity?
Who has the right

17. to live as a Dane?”
Fighting for the Right to Wear the Veil
Asserting the right to live as a Dane while wearing the niqab
has been the goal
of Kvinder i Dialog since it officially launched in January. The
group, which has
grown to approximately 60 niqabis and allies, has hosted open
houses, stood
on the street handing out flyers, visited high school classrooms
and
participated in debates on the issue, all in the hopes of trying to
help their
fellow citizens understand their choice. “We were saying to
everyone, just ask
us whatever you like,” Sabina says. “Let’s talk about it.”
By becoming more visible, Kvinder i Dialog has been able to
change some
minds. “If you are forced to wear it, I would not understand
why you are
fighting so much for it,” Sabina recalls a woman telling her at
an open house.
But it hasn’t always worked. Politicians have refused to take
their meetings and

18. they’ve received hateful responses on their social media posts.
Part of the problem is that many Danes have never seen, let
alone met or talked
to, a woman who wears the niqab, Sabina says. That fueled
misconceptions
about the background and motivations of the niqabis. Half of
the women that
Warburg found in her 2009 study were ethnic Danes, for
example, as recent
converts tend to be more devout in their religious expression.
Further, women
wear the niqab as a way to challenge and deepen their faith,
Warburg says. She
did not find evidence that there were women being forced to
wear the veil in
Denmark.
Women who choose the niqab say oppression has not come from
the veil itself,
but from Denmark’s opposition to it. Sarah, a gregarious 30-
year-old student,
mother of three and another founder of Kvinder i Dialog, said it
was already

19. difficult to wear her face covering in public. Once a man
threatened to kill her
at a train station in front of her then 3-year-old son.
Despite this, Sarah, who was born in Denmark to a Muslim
family and speaks
Danish as her first language, grew up believing that the
country’s tradition of
tolerance would protect her religious choices and allow her to
follow her
dreams of studying engineering and starting her own business.
Now Sarah—
who asked TIME to only use her first name to protect her
privacy—is
considering switching to e-learning to finish her courses, and
her husband has
agreed to take full responsibility of picking up their children
from school and
running errands.
“If I want to go somewhere, I really have to think about it—is it
worth getting a
fine?” she says, bouncing her curly-haired 7-month-old daughter
on her lap
during a preparation workshop for the protest on Wednesday. “I

20. have never felt
like a victim before. This is the first time I’ve felt oppressed.”
Still, she sees the veil as a source of power as she begins life
after the ban. “You
have to be very strong to wear the niqab in Denmark,” Sarah
says. “We are not
going to lie down and let people kick us. We are going to fight
to the end.”
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