The Burqa - Sanity is alive and well in Europe

[Wahyusamputra]

Hammarberg said it was not clear women under undue pressure to don the burqa would welcome a ban [AFP]

Rights chief challenges veil ban  

A leading European human rights official has said banning the full Islamic veil would not liberate oppressed women and could backfire.

Thomsas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, said on Sunday that banning the burqa and niqab would be "an ill-advised invasion of individual privacy".

"Prohibition of the burqa and the niqab would not liberate oppressed women, but might instead lead to their further alienation in European societies," Hammarberg said ahead of International Women's Day.

He also said supporters of a ban have not shown that women who wear the veil are more oppressed than others, nor that the veil undermines democracy or public morals.

The message comes as debate is under way in a number of European countries, most notably France, on whether to ban the Muslim form of dress for women.

The council, which is not related to the European Union, was founded in 1949 to protect human rights and democracy in Europe. It has 47 members, all of whom have signed the European Convention on Human Rights.

Under the convention, limitations on human rights can only usually be justified on the grounds of public health, safety or morals.

Hammarberg added that depending on its terms, a ban might also breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

Unconvincing reasons

In January, a French parliamentary report called for a ban on the niqab, saying Muslim women who fully cover their heads and faces posed an "unacceptable" challenge to French values.

Hammarberg said that the small number of women who wear the veil - around 1,900 in France, which is home to Europe's largest Muslim community - made the idea that it undermines democracy, public safety or morals unconvincing.

Women interviewed in the media about why they wore the veil gave a range of reasons, he said.

"There may of course be cases where they are under undue pressure - but it is not shown that a ban would be welcomed by these women," Hammarberg said.

"Rightly, we react strongly against any regime ruling that women must wear these garments. This is absolutely repressive and should not be accepted."

But banning the same clothing in other countries did not remedy this situation, he said, and governments should avoid passing laws on how people dress themselves.

Banning the Muslim veil would be as bad as criminalising the cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that caused outrage in some Muslim-majority countries when they were published in a Danish newspaper in 2005, Hammarberg added.

*************
“Funny, I've always thought the west was utterly wrong about the women in the Middle East. Those women from the Palestinian camps moved like queens; in no way were they subordinated to anything. Old women were far more terrifying than any kind of man. I completely understand the final sanction against the (male) rulers of Northern Nigerian Muslim states when they got beyond a joke - the palace was approached by a procession of naked grandmothers and the ruler vanished through the back door never to be seen again. That's the account according to Chinua Achebe.”
 
Isobel Clark, UK

http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2010/03/burqa-sanity-is-alive-and-well-in_09.html

[Wahyusamputra]

Hammarberg said it was not clear women under undue pressure to don the burqa would welcome a ban [AFP]

Rights chief challenges veil ban  

A leading European human rights official has said banning the full Islamic veil would not liberate oppressed women and could backfire.

Thomsas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, said on Sunday that banning the burqa and niqab would be "an ill-advised invasion of individual privacy".

"Prohibition of the burqa and the niqab would not liberate oppressed women, but might instead lead to their further alienation in European societies," Hammarberg said ahead of International Women's Day.

He also said supporters of a ban have not shown that women who wear the veil are more oppressed than others, nor that the veil undermines democracy or public morals.

The message comes as debate is under way in a number of European countries, most notably France, on whether to ban the Muslim form of dress for women.

The council, which is not related to the European Union, was founded in 1949 to protect human rights and democracy in Europe. It has 47 members, all of whom have signed the European Convention on Human Rights.

Under the convention, limitations on human rights can only usually be justified on the grounds of public health, safety or morals.

Hammarberg added that depending on its terms, a ban might also breach the European Convention on Human Rights.

Unconvincing reasons

In January, a French parliamentary report called for a ban on the niqab, saying Muslim women who fully cover their heads and faces posed an "unacceptable" challenge to French values.

Hammarberg said that the small number of women who wear the veil - around 1,900 in France, which is home to Europe's largest Muslim community - made the idea that it undermines democracy, public safety or morals unconvincing.

Women interviewed in the media about why they wore the veil gave a range of reasons, he said.

"There may of course be cases where they are under undue pressure - but it is not shown that a ban would be welcomed by these women," Hammarberg said.

"Rightly, we react strongly against any regime ruling that women must wear these garments. This is absolutely repressive and should not be accepted."

But banning the same clothing in other countries did not remedy this situation, he said, and governments should avoid passing laws on how people dress themselves.

Banning the Muslim veil would be as bad as criminalising the cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that caused outrage in some Muslim-majority countries when they were published in a Danish newspaper in 2005, Hammarberg added.

*************
“Funny, I've always thought the west was utterly wrong about the women in the Middle East. Those women from the Palestinian camps moved like queens; in no way were they subordinated to anything. Old women were far more terrifying than any kind of man. I completely understand the final sanction against the (male) rulers of Northern Nigerian Muslim states when they got beyond a joke - the palace was approached by a procession of naked grandmothers and the ruler vanished through the back door never to be seen again. That's the account according to Chinua Achebe.”
 
Isobel Clark, UK

http://wahyusamputra.blogspot.com/2010/03/burqa-sanity-is-alive-and-well-in_09.html

Note:  "Tantawi - who headed al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, who died yesterday, -  was known for his controversial ban of the niqab, which he said had no basis in Islam."

The key point of the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner's statement  "governments should avoid passing laws on how people dress themselves," appears incontrovertible.

[sushigirl]

The key point of the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner's statement  "governments should avoid passing laws on how people dress themselves," appears incontrovertible.

What 'human rights'?  Freedom of religion is encouraged and freedom of speech is verboten. What a farce!

Personally - for the record - it does not bother me how religious people want to dress, what is more important is that people are happy and fulfilled with their belief.

[Wahyusamputra]

Thomsas Hammarberg is the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, head of the European Human Rights Council.

The council, which is not related to the European Union, was founded in 1949 to protect human rights and democracy in Europe. It has 47 members, all of whom have signed the European Convention on Human Rights.

The human right the commissioner is here concerned with is the right to dress how you like, provided you do dress. 

His comment that "governments should avoid passing laws on how people dress themselves,"  a solitary resistance to Sarkozy's drive to make Islamic dress illegal, was an example of that sanity so sadly lacking in these United States.

I can not find any trace in his statement that free speech is verboten, i.e., forbidden.  Indeed his statement is a clear exercise of it.  The drive of his argument would appear to be "that people are happy and fulfilled with their belief" if left in peace to deal with how they dress.

Only my opinion, of course.

[sushigirl]

Only my opinion, of course.

I don't have a problem with your opinion. And yes: "Governments should avoid passing laws on how people dress themselves''.

The council, which is not related to the European Union, was founded in 1949 to protect human rights and democracy in Europe. It has 47 members, all of whom have signed the European Convention on Human Rights.

Fine, but where do they stand when it comes to genuinely FREE SPEECH period. What have they done about that?

Sarkozy,  Merkel and the rest of the pre 'chosen' leaders are just doing the job they were hired to do.

[Wahyusamputra]

Fine, but where do they stand when it comes to genuinely FREE SPEECH period. What have they done about that?

I don’t understand the relevance of the question, but taking a shot in the dark, I’d guess they’re in favor of freedom of speech; that is not what they are dealing with here, however, though freedom of dress might serve as an obvious extension of freedom of speech.

If, to take a similar example, I were to take penis gourds, a common form of dress in Papua New Guinea, as sufficient reason why a US Admiral should partner with a Moslem general in hacking to death with machetes a few hundred Roman Catholics in a church, which US admiral was then made head of intelligence in the US government, and could be found some years later explaining to Congress how “special permission” to assassinate US citizens would be given by the president, or any agency directly responsible to the president, and I could justify all this by simply repeating “What about penis gourds?” my argument might be judged somewhat fanciful, not to say unconvincing, even by simple and unsophisticated types.

This is precisely what happens, however, with “What about burqas?” used throughout discussion forums (LF had a number of regular participants who invariably used this ploy as sufficient and unanswerable reason why people a thousand miles away, who’d never seen a burqa in their lives, should be slaughtered without mercy) as basis for attacks on Islam.  Sarkozy is a dedicated anti-Islamist, as might be expected from a documented sayan of the Israeli Mossad, and will miss no opportunity to ridicule and attack Moslems, or to find justifications for occupying  their countries.

It is not difficult to understand, however, that an all enveloping tent might be a comforting protection in a hostile and dangerous environment, that some women might prefer to keep that tent around them even when they don’t have to, or that those who do it under family pressure will simply be unable to go out at all if it is banned.

Those are the simple and obvious truths Mr. Hammarberg was addressing, an enormous relief after years of US “What about the burqa?” and a welcome reiteration of European sanity.
 
That the burqa, and the niqab, have no foundation in the Quran, or any basic Islamic doctrine, is no more surprising than that Christians, pretty much unanimously, ignore the clear dominical injunction to avoid public prayer.  Getting all dressed up every Sunday to gather publicly with as much noise and display as possible is pretty much universal Christian practice.  Humans prefer to put their own peculiar stamp on things.

[sushigirl]

That the burqa, and the niqab, have no foundation in the Quran, or any basic Islamic doctrine, is no more surprising than that Christians, pretty much unanimously, ignore the clear dominical injunction to avoid public prayer. 

Now that is interesting, something I did not know, unless of course you are pulling my leg.

 

[Wahyusamputra]

I wouldn't dare!

Not sure which of the two you mean. 

1.  Sheikh Tantawi - who headed al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, and who died yesterday, -  was known for his controversial ban of the niqab, which he said had no basis in Islam.  He was quite correct, of course, as you might expect from the head of Islam's highest authority; it's just one of those accretions that crept in.  Equally surprising, perhaps, considering the reputation that westerners have succeeded in plastering on Islam, is the prophet Mohammed's reply when asked by his followers who was the greatest among them: "Whoever treats his wife the best."

2.  As for that troublemaker, Yeshua bin Youssef, (aka Jesus of Nazareth) his instructions on prayer were crystal clear, and have been universally ignored by most Christians.  When you pray, he said, don't do like the Pharisees, who like to pray on the street corner,  where everyone can see them.  They have their reward.  Get into your bathroom, your broom cupboard, anywhere you can be sure no one can see you (more difficult with modern spy techniques, but the drive is clear) and say "Our father which art in heaven... " and so forth.

[sushigirl]

Matthew 6:6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door ...
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in ...

"Whoever treats his wife the best."  ~  works for me. 

I am not religious, yet it is not part of my nature to plaster anyone's religion.