What if, for example, a woman wearing a niqab is subject to a crime and this is caught on a closed-circuit camera?
KARACHI: This is with reference to an article titled “Veiled agenda” in your April 10-16 issue of The Express Tribune Magazine. The comparison used in the story that, Muslims offering prayers in Europe was akin to the Nazi occupation of France, was a bit much. But having said that, the ban on the burqa in France makes sense to me since it is the right of a secular state to enforce laws that prohibit the use or display of religious symbols in public space.
As for expressing one’s religious identity, the niqab is not a central symbol of Islam anyway, modesty is. And to argue that a couple of hundred women have the right to wear niqab and claim themselves to be better Muslims than the rest of the five million is a bit of a stretch on the politics of gender and identity.
As for the identification issue, that is valid as well. A state cannot allow its citizens to walk around with their faces closed off from public view. What if, for example, a woman wearing a niqab is subject to a crime and this is caught on a closed-circuit camera? Since her face is not visible, she cannot be identified. The state has the right to protect its citizens which could be compromised in such a situation.
Atiya Abbas
Published in The Express Tribune, April 17th, 2011.
