WUNRN
CANADA - MUSLIM CANADIAN CONGRESS
URGES
GOVERNMENT TO BAN BURKAS, NIQABS IN
PUBLIC
The Canadian Press
October 08, 2009
TORONTO - Middle Eastern garments
designed to cover a woman's face are "medieval" and
"misogynist" symbols of extremism with no basis in Islam, a Canadian
Muslim lobby group said Wednesday as it urged Ottawa to ban the burka and the niqab.
The Muslim Canadian Congress called on the federal government to prohibit the
two garments in order to prevent women from covering their faces in public - a
practice the group said has no place in a society that supports gender
equality.
"To cover your face is to conceal your identity," congress
spokeswoman Farzana Hassan said in a telephone interview, describing the issue
as a matter of public safety, since concealing one's identity is a common
practice for criminals.
The tradition of Muslim women covering their faces in public is a tradition
rooted more in Middle Eastern culture than in the Islamic faith, Hassan added.
There is nothing in any of the primary Islamic religious texts, including the
Qur'an, that requires women to cover their faces, she said - not even in the
controversial, ultra-conservative tenets of Sharia law.
Considering the fact that women are in fact forbidden from wearing burkas in
the grand mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, it hardly makes sense that the
practice should be permitted in Canada, she said.
"If a government claims to uphold equality between men and women, there is
no reason for them to support a practice that marginalizes women."
The proposed ban would include the burka, an iconic head-to-toe gown with a
mesh-like panel over the face that allows the wearer to see and to breathe, as
well as the niqab - a veil that leaves only the eyes exposed.
Hassan said the ban would not extend to the hijab, a traditional headscarf that
does not cover the face.
The proposed ban comes on the heels of reports that Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi,
dean of Egypt's al-Azhar university and the country's highest Muslim authority,
is poised to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, against the garments.
Media reports Monday said Tantawi described the face coverings as "a
custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith."
Mohamed Elmasry, former president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said he
agrees the tradition has its roots in cultural customs rather than religious
teachings, but that the issue is irrelevant in Canada where the practice is not
widespread.
Elmasry disputed suggestions that the garments pose a security threat, saying
only a minority of Muslim women living in Canada feel the need to conceal their
features in public.
He said he believes those women should have the freedom to decide whether they
wish to cover their faces, and that a ban would limit freedom of expression.
"People feel it's part of their identity, people feel it's part of their
culture," Elmasry said.
"It's not for you and me to decide."
Egypt Cleric 'to
Ban Full Veils'
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Egypt's highest Muslim authority has said he will issue a religious edict against the growing trend for full women's veils, known as the niqab. Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith. Although most Muslim women in Egypt wear the Islamic headscarf, increasing numbers are adopting the niqab as well. The practice is widely associated with more radical trends of Islam. The niqab question reportedly arose when Sheikh Tantawi was visiting a girls' school in Cairo at the weekend and asked one of the students to remove her niqab. The Egyptian newspaper al-Masri al-Yom quoted him expressing surprise at the girl's attire and telling her it was merely a tradition, with no connection to religion or the Koran. |
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