WUNRN
KUWAIT
- APPEAL TO PUT INTO PRACTICE,
LAW
AGAINST DRIVING WITH NIQAB
April
29, 2010
By Hussain Al-Qatari, Staff Writer
KUWAIT:
A famous political online community forum is pushing for liberal MPs to submit
a question to the Minister of Interior Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah on why women
wearing niqabs are allowed to drive without being fined.
According
to a law passed in 2006, women covering their faces are not allowed to drive
cars in Kuwait, but this law has not been put into practice.
The
posted announcement on the online forum quotes driving safety as the reason for
this incentive, and says that since other MPs are submitting
questions which demand that the law be practiced and followed thoroughly, this
is one of the laws that has been ignored for a while and, it insists: "It
is about time that it is put into practice.
Reactions to this incentive varied: Many of those who are supportive of women
wearing niqab and driving insisted that the application of the law is a
violation of the laws and customs of religion, and goes against the freedom
granted by the Constitution to Kuwaiti citizens.
Many others consider this an honest call for indecency and an encouragement to
corruption and immorality. However, a lot of supporters of this law expressed
that it needs to be applied if the government insists on going by the rules.
The niqab is arguably not a religious must; it is a tradition inherited from
the old days through life in the desert. Citizen Abdullah Al-Aif, 38, thinks
that if the government insists on applying this law and controlling women's
dress code, then they should also consider a l
aw against wearing the headdress men wear with traditional attire.
It is like the niqab. It can be bothersome to many drivers," he said,
mockingly to the Kuwait Times. Latifa Al-Ajmi, 27, is a woman who wears the
niqab and drives. She says that it does not bother her to drive while wearing
the niqab most days. "When there are check points, police men ask me to
reveal my face when I present them with my driving license. It is a necessity;
they must know who is driving the car. I have no problem revealing my face
then," she said, stressing that a niqab is not usually worn
religiously.
If the law is applied, Latifa says that she doesn't see a problem in taking off
her niqab while driving, "I work close to where I live; I don't have a
problem making the short commute to the school where I work without wearing my
niqab. Inside the school, I only teach girls and so I feel comfortable not
wearing my niqab. Some of my colleagues and some students even take off their
hijab, since the school is a girls-only zone," she added. Latifa believes
that this issue is only surfacing for political reas
ons, and MPs will be the ones who benefit from it the most.
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