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France's lower house of parliament has approved a ban on wearing the Islamic full veil in public.

The legislation would make it illegal for women to wear the burka or the niqab in public. Fines of 150 euros (£119) are envisaged for women wearing the veils and men who force their wives to wear the burka could receive a fine of 30,000 euros and a year jail term. If the bill is ratified by the Senate in September, it will become law.

There are estimated to be only about 2,000 women wearing the full veil in France, with most of these in the niqab rather than the burka, although the bill is opposed by many of France's five million Muslims.

The bill has broad cross-party support in the National Assembly and opinion polls suggest overwhelming public support.

Why do you guys think of this?

I think that it's a ridiculous law. If it's part of their religion, then let them have the choice to wear the veil. What harm could it do?

I won't ban on JBA anyone wearing full veil, know my mercy.

Well Swine i don't know where you live, or if you have any musslims close where you live.

But europe, especially france has an flood of inmigation mainly Marocans....
Most Marocan Woman's wear a veil or a burka.

A huge problem is that due to this, it is not posible to reconise the people wearing them(Especially bukas)
Where i live there have been terrorists disguising themselfs as marrocan woman's in order to transport bombs, or even complete terrorist attacks.

So there have been talks as well here about Removing the burkas...or veils...
Besides that a lot of marrocan Girls have no choice about the religion or wearing Veils....

In europe there is still a considered number of marrocan girl that are forced to mary somone they don't want to marry to....
This is highly illegal as well, but it happens frequently....

I could say WAY more things about what they do where i live, how they are against others, ETC...
But ill just remain fixated on this law..


On one hand i see the French reason why they want this law....
On the other i see the religios preocupation of the muslims....

It would be difficult to choose who to party for....
But the fact remains...muslims must respect the law outside their country...
While we must respect theirs when we go to their native lands....

I live in England and I agree that terrorism is a huge problem, MT. But let us not get our minds clouded by the minority who are terrorists. The whole Muslim community in France would have to stop wearing their head dress just because of them.

Islam states that you can wear a head dress at your choice. France and other countries should respect that religion and allow the people of France to wear their head dress.

While I wholeheartedly support France's badass hardcore secularist approach to policies, I see this as over-the-top. It is an unjustifiable infringement on personal liberty that can't be excused.

Sure, you could argue that this is a law that prevents individuals from anonymously engaging in terrorist-related activities, but this isn't a convincing point at all. If I wanted to blow something up (through suicide bombing or other methods), whether I was wearing a full-body garment that disguised my identity or not would have no impact on the success of my efforts. I could still blow up a post office in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
As for people disguising themselves as Islamic women in order to engage in terrorist activities: In addition to my above point, the fact that there is considerable stigma associated with Islam (whether authorities admit to it or not), will lead to an increased suspicion of individuals wearing these garments, rather than enabling them to carry out their tasks undetected.

The image of the "ever-vigilant" state that can see and stop terrorist attempts is a false one, although I do understand why it is regularly stressed.

Minas, please stop using ellipses so excessively, please.

On a related note, has anyone seen the movie Four Lions? It's hilarious.

France does not have to respect their choices. France has every right to protect it's sovereignty as a nation and a person who wants to enter and live in France needs to obey and respect their laws. Nobody force those muslims to live in France and Frances' concern is that it may lose their identity as a country by the influx of other cultures and France has the right to protect. If the Muslims don't like Frances law then they can leave. There are Muslim countries that have laws according to the culture/religion/government which would prohibit American/Europeans from exercising their religious freedoms do you have an issue with that?

Minas has addressed some major points as for the reason why the law has been implemented. I also understand the reasoning from Corpse and Swine Flu.

One must not forget several people view the burka as undermining women's rights. Which is not accepted in Europe. So one must choose: support religious rights/freedoms or support women's rights/freedoms in this subject.

In Saudi Arabia for example, foreign women are required the wear the scarf if they want to avoid being harassed by the Muttawa (Religious Police). The people demand foreigners to respect their customs, public kissing is considered offensive for them, homosexual activity is punishable by execution... I can list more things.
Source: http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/ ... udi_arabia
The point is, those who demand equal rights/freedoms (views, religion etc...) in a country like France, would deny others (westerners/non-muslims) the same rights/freedoms in their own country (e.x. Saudi Arabia).
If those that wish to immigrate into another country, should understand that they are guests of said country, should respect the culture and customs. If they do not like the laws/customs (like France's Burka law), they can leave. No one is forcing them to stay.

There is also the subject of freedom of speech for/against the Religion which I will not go into detail.

Cheers

Yanoda

Only a couple brief things I'll say.

Muslims have been in France longer than the white man has been in America.

There is no "they" - to assume there is is bigotry. Going even further to make all Muslims responsible for the acts of people with different ethnicities in different countries (like Saudi Arabia) is absolutely ridiculous.

The generalizations bother me more than anything else in this thread.

Matt-Chicago wrote:Only a couple brief things I'll say.

Muslims have been in France longer than the white man has been in America.
There is no "they" - to assume there is is bigotry. Going even further to make all Muslims responsible for the acts of people with different ethnicities in different countries (like Saudi Arabia) is absolutely ridiculous.

The generalizations bother me more than anything else in this thread.

Matt, Not sure what your point is there. But if your point is that Muslims were living in France long before White people you may have a point but then again most of their settlements were located on the southern tip of France and Spain and at their initial colonization they were not Muslims. Also, it is widely believed that early man migrated from deep within Africa and moved North into Europe and thus began populating there. Also there were "White" Nomadic tribes that wandered all through out Europe and even recently discovered on the western most edges of Asia for several thousand years. So really who's to say who was there first? Just a thought.

I wonder how much slack any authorities would cut me if I sported a ninja mask everywhere I went. Supermarket, schools, bank, DMV...

Just sayin