Decades ago before I even knew of niqabs, I turned the corner of an aisle in a supermarket and walked into someone in one of those —complete with steel mesh. My jaw dropped, and I just froze. I didn’t mean to be rude, but it was monstrous looking and scared me for a moment. It looked like the boogeyman. And this was in L.A.County, not the Middle East!
All this does raise the question of rights..... Specifically, the rights of the person wearing the niqab versus the rights of those occupying the space in the vicinity of the wearer. Essentially here is the question.....Do I have a right to see your face if you are conducting yourself in my general space in a public arena setting? Barbara Kay is a columnist with the National Post who wrote what I thought was a thought provoking piece about this a few years ago when the issue was being debated in Canada. For the record, the European Court of Human Rights has established that the answer to that question is yes. As Barbara Kay says in the closing of her article, “Enshrining in law the social right to see each other as a norm is not intolerance. It is protection of the principle of social reciprocity on which a healthy culture depends.” http://www.barbarakay.ca/articles/view/1054