At last a country who has the balls to do what is right, and so obvious.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6160620.stm

This is not a muslim bashing excercise, although muslims fanatics will see this differently, this is plain common sense, and I look forward to exactly the same thing happening in the UK.

ALL face coverings are to be banned in public places, excelent and long overdue.

All opinions are welcome including any from muslim fanatics who think that this is all about them, if you read the BBC news report, there are only thought to be about 100 women in Holland who regulary wear the Burka.


Andy

Heh....what about women with make-up? I know many who would not be recognized without their usual cosmetic face coverings.

andyb: I couldn't agree more. That burkha is an ideal disguise. You could hide pretty much any weapon under it and use it in a bank robbery, if you wanted. It'd be pretty ideal, because your face and body type are concealed. You could easily carry a shotgun inside that sack without riskins exposure. And the best part is that you would probably avoid all body searches, since everyone is so scared of pissing off the muslims. I can imagine the outrage in the muslim community, if someone hinted that muslim clothing is ideal for terrorists in hiding their identity, weapons or explosives safely in public place...

Erssa thats been done already, and by a man....... Crossdressing

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 95178.html

Hey Bluefront, I know exactly what you mean, there are some women who apply makeup with trowels.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trowel


Andy

Actually this proposal in the making (for that is all what this is at this moment) is a Muslim bashing exercise.

I'm Dutch and I'm no Muslim.

This proposal came forth as a result of an extremist right wing party asking for a ban on burkas specifically. Since you can't do that, (Freedom of religion, anti-discrimination, etc.) they came up with this public safety excuse.

To put this even more into perspective, it is election time over here. The minister whose responsibility this is, is a member of a party who is doing abysmal in the polls. This is a right wing party who are losing votes to more extremist right wing parties. Whether this will become a real proposal is highly dependent on the outcome of the elections. And even then it is a question if it will pass all legal checks that exist in the legislation process.

Tibors, you might be perfectly correct that this was born out of public fear, however this should have always been the case, now there is an excuse to put this into action, now is the right time to do it.

The extreme right should not be ignored, even if you dont agree with them you shouldnt right them off as pointless, they have their agenda's, and this is one that I agree with. Do you.???

I personally find it offensive that someone doesnt show their face, I can understand if they have a disfugurement, or need some kind of face mask for protection. An example would be a motorcyclist, or someone who has breathing problems and needs a filter so they can breathe. OK the last one is very rare thankfully, but motorcyclist are constantly being told to take of their helmet, especially in banks.

I dont care why someone has their face covered, unless they cant breathe when walking down the street and need a mask they should have their face visible to everyone.

All of the liberal tree-hugging hippies will argue that it goes against their human rights (due to religion), well people are not allowed to walk down the road stark naked (not in the UK), yet it is surely their human right to walk down the road naked.!!!

It is MY human right to see someones face, again this is NOT about muslims, this is about respect and visibility. If I ever go to the middle east, I will expect my woman to cover herself up, as that is the done thing. If I go to a motorcycle convention, I dont expect to see many faces, as they will probably be wearing helmets.


Andy

I think it is bad to base legislation on temporary public fear.

Let us wait for the first cold winter after this gets into effect to see what the reaction of the public is going to be when they start giving fines to people covering their face with a woollen shawl. Because if they don't fine those people, then it is immediately clear what hypocrites they are.

Yes.. Let's ban skirts too! and baggy pants. and pockets! My god... the things you can hide in those!! Let's Ban Life!, what a great slogan. Life is risky and unpredictable, so it must be EVIL! EVIL i tell you! EeEEeeeEeEviiill....(in a ghostly, spooky kind of voice)

For all i care people can dress in anything they like, be it a pair of speedos and a hairy chest or a fookin' big carrot with acne.

Don't let Bush hear you say that or he'll start "the war on Life".

Just because because the populist left wingers afraid to scare of voters and adress this issue, doesn't mean, that it was done as a bashing attempt on culture. Try walking to a bank wearing a skimask and see what happens... Burkha is even worse.
Strawman. Won't happen.
Funny, not. They are banning a disguise. People in Europe have the right to feel safe. They come to our countries to live with our social welfare, so is it too much to ask, that they integrate, just a little bit and show their faces to other people. It's really not much to ask.. It should surpasses muslims right to wear a sack. If those muslims really want to wear burkhas, they can go do it where they came from, this is still (not for long) our continent and our culture is precious too. They should show some respect to us and our culture aswell and show their faces to people they are dealing with. We welcomed them with open arms, maybe it's time to show some ability to adjust? Or is it just the native europeans job to accept everything, and not expect muslims to compromise?

On the other hand burkha is a handy outfit, if a daughter accidentally falls in love with a kafir, it's easy to protect honor of the family and beat the girl with steal pipes, you can even beat hit her face, since noone would even see the marks.

Here's how bad this political correctness thing is in some places in the USA....on a drivers license, used for identification purposes, Muslim women are allowed to wear a veil, which of course makes the license useless for identification.

But's that's ok, right? Because it's a Muslim custom.......

Huh? What is the purpose of this proposed law? How does banning a category of clothing promote security? How does it promote tolerance? This makes no sense to me...

The concealed weapon excuse is an obvious red herring. Banning a face covering will not prevent people from hiding weapons elsewhere ... how many bank robbers do you think would hide their weapon in a mask? How many bank robbers do you think would obey a law against face coverings. They're robbing a bank, for God's sake, they're not going to obey a law that will help them get caught.

What about situations where wearing a face covering is legitimate. I'm sure that the welder's guild won't take kindly to being told that they can't wear face protection when welding in public. Or how about telling skiiers that they can't wear ski masks on the hill? (ok, I suppose there aren't many ski hills in the Netherlands, but work with me here). Obviously the law is a little broad as conceived right now; I can't see anyone pushing the law through without considering exceptions like that.

The only positive thing I can see this doing is it may help integration. I am all for integration, but I don't think you can legislate it. The practical effect of this law will be to confine Burqa-wearing women to their homes and cause a load of inconvenience to everyone else ... assuming anyone bothers to obey the law. Can you honestly see someone phoning in a police complaint when this law gets broken? Will it be used by anyone except the few members of society who want to make life miserable for the tiny minority of Muslim women?

</rant>

My original question still stands: What exactly does this law accomplish?

I dont feel unsafe when i see someone walking down the street with his or her face covered... be it a burqa or a ski mask. This whole protection thing is getting out of hand in my opinion. Soon i will be asked to empty all body cavities before taking a flight, because i could hide potentially lethal toothpaste in my ass.

As for integration, im all for it. But laws like this wont work. Integration is not working very well in Finland as far as i can see. Ideally humans should mate with genetically different people, so ultimately it would be better for the human race if all immigrants integrate in our society

By integrate i don't mean they should change their religion and habits, but they should learn the language. There should be mandatory language classes and some kind of test. If integration is going to happen, they at least have to learn the language, after that it should work out by itself eventually, it will take a generation or two, but one can't force anyone to integrate.

:roll: What are your fears based on? Surely it's not the proposed law.

What fears are these? I'm just trying to figure out what something that you, andyb and the article seem to take as self-evident: the connection between security and banning facial coverings. To me, this looks like a law without a purpose. My rather poorly thought out rant was an attempt to illustrate why this law seems ridiculous to me.

Anyhow, this article in today's National Post (Canada) did a much better job of explaining the context than the BBC article that andyb linked to. I think I now have some idea of where the motivation for the law is coming from, although I still find the whole idea a bit ridiculous. And the "security" justification is complete BS.

You missed this sentence:

This law seems like way overkill, considering the estimated number of women who wear a burqa ranges between 30 and 100 individuals, depending on who you ask (in a country of over 16 million, and 850k muslims). I'm no fan of the burqa but banning it is the wrong way to get rid of it.

No I did not. I wouldn't mind, if they banned me from wearing crash helmets with visors in schools, buses, trains and law courts or streets.

First I wasn't going to respond to this, but meh... When I mentioned hiding weapons, I didn't mean they would hide shotguns under the mask. Burqa is basically a huge sack that covers all of the body, there's plenty of free space to hide weapons in. I know that there are lots of other clothes that can be used to hide weapons. It's amazing how much weapons you can hide in loose jeans. But this is not the whole point, loose clothing combined with a mask to hide the identity is just too much. It's not just that I believe that muslims would use it to do crimes. It's just too luring option for anyone to wear it, for crimes. Not only does it hide your identity and helps to conceal weapons, but it is easy to get rid of, you can wear normal clothing under it. It also makes muslims the prime suspects, making it pretty much ideal for a normal white christian bank robber. And like I said, everyone is so scared of offending muslims, that you probably wouldn't get body searched either...

And yes, robbers will wear face mask no matter what, but at it's a small step towards safety. But safety is not the only reason here.

Like you said, this law targets only a small minority of people. So what's the big deal? It will have only positive effects and not a single negative effect.


This law has very important symbolic meaning. It shows that time has come, when some people Europe have finally asked themselves, why is it that only we only have to adjust to their needs? Maybe it's time that they compromise in return.

Socialists like to label people who vote center-right wing parties as skinhead and neo nazis. But really it's the regular normal people who are starting to vote right wing parties instead of the socialists, because they have seen that socialist governments in Europe have failed with their immigration and integration policies (who am I kidding, there are no integration policies, since they value their culture more then ours). Suburbs are burning in France. Rapes and violent crimes have increased all over in Europe and people are rightfully scared. Socialist don't have solution, they only blame the natives for being racist scumbags that are causing all the integration problems with discrimination. So it's only rational that people are showing they are displeased by turning their votes to right. Don't expect this trend to stop.

What are we gaining with this law? Maybe a more open discussions concerning integration and conflict of cultures. Maybe the white, christian heterosexual natives have stopped bending over and taking everything up the ash and started demanding that their rights and culture are just as valuable and deserve to be respected just as much. are now acknowledged too.

And fear not this kind of law won't be abused. If it's cold people will surely be allowed to walk the streets with scarfs and veils on their face. Cops are decent people, they are not racially prejudiced people only wanting to harrass people. Abuse would result in discrimination charges. Judges and prosecutors are also decent people. Abuse wouldn't fly in courts and abusers would be punished.

Would you like me to keep my head up in the street when I'm passing you?

funny, I thought there was a law against driving a motorcycle in the streets WITHOUT a helmet.... how's that work then?

btw I walk and bike about a lot in public places during the winter, I think i would be cold without a scarf when the temperature is below zero and it is windy.

there are other ways to hide weapons...[/url]

Another funny thing is how the right is often for individual freedom and personal choice, but apparently not when it comes to immigrants

And from what Erssa said the law won't apply equally depending on the time of the year? Or who wears a scarf?

Luckily this law won't ever get on the books, at "best" it'll get one party a few more seats in parliament and perhaps into a coalition government, but I doubt they'll pass it.

These are all non-issues, like I mentioned in my post...

No it's not. For example in the USA right wing are the loudest opponents of gay marriage, rights for abortion etc... Both left and right wingers stand up for some freedoms.
Of course, it would. But you are making issues where they do not exist. Even during winter it wouldn't be allowed to wear ski masks in courts of law, banks, schools etc...

So the general consensus of opinion is................. very mixed.

Some dont think it will work/be upheld if it becomes law, some dont think it will become law, some think that it shouldnt become law because its not right, and some people think that it should become law, and be upheld.

As everyone who has read this will know, I think that this should not just become law in Holland, but in the UK where I live.

As far as this being a security threat is concerned, it absolutley is a threat, as many people have pointed out. Its not so much as the fact that people can hide things under their Burkha, but that bags will be searched, people might be "felt", but I doubt that many people will check under someones Burkha at all.

The other problem is the really obvious one, and to be honest far more likely, someone can hide their face in a way that they cant if they are wearing a "Balaklava" (ski-mask) because they wont be asked to take it off, and of course most people dont walk around totally hidden all of the time.

I am actually quite tempted to get a balaklava and a trenchcoat and wander around my part of London and see what happens.!!! Chances are I will be stared at all of the time, every passing police officer will stop me, people will also phone the police, and I might even get attacked, you dont see that happening with people who wear Burkhas (yet...... this might happen if there is a big public backlash).

Also, as this proposed law points out, this applys to all forms of face coverings worn in public that are NOT necessary, so welding, breathing, protection, and cold protection are all OK, and if an officer of the law asks to see that person they will have to oblige, currently this is the case with everything EXCEPT Burkhas, which are far from necessary, and not any kind of religious requirement.

And yes people are frightened/concerned, and this is not just because we cant see peoples faces, but because the muslim population of the UK are the new "Irish", 20 years ago people were scarred of anyone with an Irish accent, thats because the IRA decided they wanted to go around the UK, and Ireland shooting people and blowing them up.

Apart from muslims stopping the kind of disgusting violence that creates hatred, integration is the only other way. The London Bombings caused a huge amount of anger, 99% of it was directed towards the Muslim community, this has lessened but people are still pissed off, and now the Veil and Burkha is under attack. I think that anyone in any european country, and the US/Canada can understand why. The public are wanting everyone to be treated the same, and they want everyone to be British first, and whatever they want second.

We have a hugely mixed culture in London, and pretty much the only people who stick out are the people who wear Burkhas, Sikhs and their turbans are totally inoffensive, Indians wearing Sahi's are quite common, and the design and colour pleasant to the eye, Skull Caps are often seen, alongside rosary beads, crosses, and anything else you can think of. All of the people, and dress are accepted, mostly because they are not worn day in day out, and we can see who they are. If there was a public vote right now, in this public climate Burkhas and Veils would be banned.

That was a touch longer than I was expecting, I hope I have got my point of view and the general opinion of the British masses accross to everyone without sounding too offensive, or ranting too much. And also re-affirmed the many points of the people who think that this is a good idea, while clarifying the detail of the debate, and the reasons.


Andy

So if that were turned around, you would argue that it's only fair that any woman who goes to a predominantly muslim country should show some respect, and cover her face and body and be escorted around in public, because that's the predominant custom of the country?

When in Rome...

Breunor, I said that in my previous post.

"If I ever go to the middle east, I will expect my woman to cover herself up, as that is the done thing."

Not least because in some countries rape is basically legal if the woman aroused the man by showing a bit of ankle or more hair than just her eylashes. Or being stoned to death is always on the cards.


Andy

That's insnane. Why would anyone think that a woman visiting bosnia or kazakhstan should wear a burka?

If you didn't already know, it's already the reality. I happen to know a women who has worked as a nurse in United Arab Emirates. She had been risking her life, if she had walked the streets with a miniskirt. Or even with a t-shirt. It's really common that highly educated female doctors and nurses go to work in the rich arab oil countries. They get paid insane amounts of money for it. And they can all confirm this, and they often share their experiences as they are guests in courses about foreign cultures for business/marketing/economics people.

Besides your point is moot, no islamic country or even Q'ran does not tell that women should cover their faces. But it is expected from a westerner to show some respect and cover her arms, shoulders and legs.

Not to mention, that if a westerner willingly moves to a muslim country I fully believe he wants to respect their traditions and conform. I expect the same courtesy from them.

Nitpicking perhaps, but

The use of the word "disguise" in the title of the thread is unnerving. I know the OP was not implying such by the use of the word, but it could conceivably be taken up as a security concept.

People who bleach/dye their hair, have plastic surgery; crossdressers, clowns, celebrities requiring anonymity -- all harmless expressions for material, psychological or safety benefits.

The burqua is, of course, not a disguise, and the chances of incognito/disguise being banned is remote, but it strikes me that incognito/disguise should be conceived of as being a right (assuming it is not used to facilitate causing harm.)