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President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won't be welcome in France. The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France's two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has been approved—braving...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out strongly against the wearing of the burka by Muslim women in France. In a major policy speech, he said the burka - a garment covering women from head to toe - reduced them to servitude and undermined their dignity.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government is to consider banning the burka and other Islamic clothing which French MPs claim is degrading to women. In a move that sparked fierce debate, a group of parliamentarians called for an inquiry into the wearing of the head-to-toe Islamic veil in France and whether Muslim women who cover themselves completely in public constitute an assault on French secularism and women's rights. In a call that won support from senior figures in Mr Sarkozy's government, they demanded that a parliamentary commission consider the fate in France of the burka, where the eyes are covered by a...

Bazooka or Burka & fear of criticizing Islamofascism... thesun.co.uk — Many people are scared to criticise the worst excesses of Islamofascism while being hysterically sensitive to the perceived wrongs of our own culture, especially when it comes to the oppression of females. http://digg.com/arts_culture/Bazooka_or_Burka_fear_of_criticizing_Islamofascism

Saudi cleric Sheikh Mohammed al-Habadan has declared that a Muslim veil, or hijab, that covers all but the eyes encourages women to use eye make-up to look seductive, the BBC reported Friday. Al-Habadan has called on Saudi women to wear a full veil, or niqab, which covers the entire face, including one eye. The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies. The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their...

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye. Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

A Muslim member of the French Government has attacked the head-to-toe Islamic dress as a prison, applauding a court decision to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wore it. “The burka is a prison, a strait-jacket,” Fadela Amara, the Minister for Urban Affairs and a longstanding women's rights campaigner, said yesterday. “It is not religious. It is the insignia of a totalitarian political project for sexual inequality.” The court decision denying Faiza Mabchour, 32, French citizenship has drawn approval from both Left and Right, highlighting a rejection of Muslim customs that conflict with the values of the secular French...

The fiancée of one of the leaders of the failed July 21 suicide attacks has been sentenced to three years in jail for helping him escape by dressing in a burka as a Muslim woman. Fardosa Abdullahi, who was 17 at the time, gave Yassin Omar her mobile phone handset, provided a scarf and handbag for his disguise and accompanied him to Golders Green coach station where he fled to Birmingham in his feminine disguise. Omar's family persuaded her to contact police but she claimed she did not know where he was and it was not until six days after...

When I came to this country, I took off my hijab. It wasn't an easy decision. I worried at night that God would punish me for it. That's what I had been taught would happen, and it filled me with fear. I was 27, coming from my home country of Iraq to study in California. I hoped that by taking off the hijab I had been wearing for eight years, I would be able to maintain a low profile. In Baghdad, you keep a low profile to stay alive. But in the United States, I merely wanted not to be...

Cambridge University has been given £8 million by a Saudi Arabian prince to establish an Islamic studies centre. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, ranked in the top 20 richest men in the world, with a fortune of about £10 billion, has donated the cash to the university to fund a centre in his name for the study of the role of Islam in the Middle East and globally. The gift has been recommended by the university's general board and is expected to be announced in June. advertisement The grandson of King Ibn Saud and nephew of King Abudllah, the prince counts...

A fringe sect of Jewish women with a Taliban-like dress code will be overcome by a major spiritual crisis after the arrest of the group's leader on charges of child abuse, haredi sources in Beit Shemesh predicted Wednesday. According to haredi media and a well-informed source in Beit Shemesh, the 54-year-old mother of 12 who is suspected of serious child abuse and failing to report multiple cases of incest among her children, is none other than the head of a sect of women who adhere to a dress code more stringent than that of the most extreme Muslim sects and...

A burqa may not be the flirtiest garment ever invented for women. The highly modest head-to-toe robe even shrouds the eyes, so for centuries it's been difficult for women wearing them to send suggestive signals to men. But now a German designer has debuted a digitally-enabled burqa that can broadcast a photo of the wearer to nearby mobile phones. Markus Kison calls it the "CharmingBurka," and says it isn't forbidden by Islamic law. A model demonstrated a prototype of Kison's garment at the Seamless 2008 design and fashion show in Boston, a high-tech fashion event run with support from the...

The bright blue veil of the burqa is one of the most iconic and widely worn pieces of women’s clothing in Afghanistan. Since the fall of the Taliban, fewer women wear the burqa in Kabul, but elsewhere, in the provinces, the burqa is as ubiquitous as ever. The Zamarai family, shown in the video, have been tailors and burqa-makers for three generations. But recently there’s a new player in the Kabul burqa market: China, which mass-produces a style of burqa that many women here find more fashionable than the Zamarais’ traditional hand-assembled garments. The Chinese-made burqas’ tightly-crimped folds and machine-produced...

Little girls in the militancy-hit Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan hate a diktat issued by pro-Taliban rebels to attend school in burqas. Burqas are the only option some girls' schools in northwestern Pakistan have against being shut down or worse, being bombed. "I want to study, but not in a burqa," said Shah Rukh, a 12-year-old girl enrolled at a primary school at Saidu Sharif in Swat. Shah Rukh is just one of many girls who have learnt to speak out against the burqa diktat in the picturesque Valley. "My 11-year-old daughter cries every morning when she has to wear...

'I 'd like a one-way air fare to New York on the next available flight. I have no luggage. Could you make sure the ticket is refundable … in case I change my mind?" I was standing at the Delta shuttle counter at Washington's Reagan National Airport, dressed in my Saudi burka. "Sure, no problem," the clerk replied brightly. "Do you have Skymiles?" "Uh, no." "I'll need some form of identification." I handed her my driver's licence, which showed the occupant of the black tent to be a blonde, blue-eyed resident of the District of Columbia. "Thanks." Tap, tap, tap...

HIDDENITE, N.C. -- Police are investigating an unusual robbery in Hiddenite. Someone dressed in a burgundy burka walked into the People’s Bank at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, showed the teller a handgun and demanded money. The robber then took off down N.C. 90 in a burgundy sport utility vehicle

THIS is the face of the anti-war Left!I took this from the Navy Memorial side of the counterprotest today, 15 September 2007, Washington, DC. More left-wing insanity: The enemy: the Code Pinkos, trying their best to stir us up. The veterans who have turned their backs on their brothers and sisters. This "Free Palestine" character stood out. Accompanying the conspiracy nutjobs... http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v112/196/104/662887830/n662887830_199561_7230.jpg". Hugo Chavez fan. Don't know if he was an illegal or not. And the coup de gross:She just couldn't keep her mouth closed as well.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Stuck for inspiration about what to wear at their village carnival, one group made a last-minute decision to dress up in mock Muslim burkas. Calling themselves the "Page Three Beauties from the Ramalama Ding-Dong Times", the 17 men and women carried placards with made-up names such as "Miss Hairyarmpitsbad", "Miss Slackistan", "Miss Notbadinbedabad" and "Miss Reallyamanistan". As they walked the one-mile parade route, the group knelt down in mock prayer and used fake compasses to try to find Mecca. Their routine impressed carnival judges - a mayor, two district councillors...

Once-exotic forms of Muslim women's head and body garments have now become both familiar in the West and the source of fractious political and legal disputes.

THE leader of a radical Pakistani mosque was arrested while trying to flee in a woman's burqa as security forces stepped up pressure on a few hundred hardcore followers still holed up inside. Firebrand cleric Abdul Aziz's capture sparked an exodus from Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, with 1,200 male and female students surrendering to the authorities a day after clashes there left 16 people dead. The government of embattled President Pervez Musharraf hailed the capture of the firebrand preacher as a major success, after months of criticism that it was failing to tackle extremism. "After all the things...