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France imam in favor of burqa ban

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] Imam Hassen Chalghoumi of Paris gave his support Friday to a proposed law that would ban wearing the burqa or niqab in public. In an interview with Le Parisien, Chalghoumi said that the full veil is not a part of French culture and that a woman should move to a country where it is accepted if she wishes to wear one. While Chalghoumi supports the ban, he criticized conservative lawmaker Jean-Francois Cope for introducing legislation without waiting to hear the results of the commission established by National Assembly, which are expected next week. Cope's move to introduce legislation last week was in direct opposition to the National Assembly's November decision not to push for specific legislation banning the burqa. The commission began its hearings in July after being established a month earlier to address the issue. The controversy between the Muslim community and the secular French government has gone on for several years. In December 2008, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously ruled that there was no human rights violation when a French school expelled two Muslim students for refusing to remove their headscarves. In July of that year, a Muslim woman's citizenship application was denied because she failed to assimilate to French culture and practiced a type of Islam found incompatible with French values.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on January 22, 2010 (boomark / email).