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A wide-ranging US State Department report has criticised France and Belgium for passing controversial laws that prevent women from wearing full Islamic veils. The US on Monday criticised France and Belgium for banning women from wearing face-covering Islamic veils in public, while warning of growing anti-Semitism and hostility towards Muslims in Europe. The US State Department’s report on religious freedoms, researched in 2011 but released on July 30, 2012, warned that freedom of worship was being undermined across the globe -- particularly in China and Pakistan. Commenting on the report, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that more than...

CAIRO – Indian activists have warned that a recent decision by a Mangalore college to ban full face-veil in classes would force Muslim students to quit education, a move that could increase dangerous illiteracy rate among Muslim women. "The burqa is a cultural symbol for Muslim women,” Ruth Manorama, president of the National Alliance of Women, told the Times of India on Friday, April 27. “I don't see any point in educational institutions putting a ban on it,” he added. The controversial ban on burqa was imposed by the St Aloysius Pre-University College as part of its prospectus for undergraduate...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - In a move likely to increase tension with Canada's Muslim minority, the government said on Monday it would bar all women wearing face coverings from taking part in citizenship ceremonies. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said he had received complaints from citizenship judges and parliamentarians about veiled women taking the oath to formally become Canadian. "Requiring that all candidates show their faces while reciting the oath allows judges and everyone present to share in the ceremony," Kenney said in a speech in Montreal. "The citizenship oath is a quintessentially public act. It is a public declaration that you...

Muslim women would have to remove veils and show their faces to police on request or risk a prison sentence under proposed new laws in Australia’s most populous state that have drawn criticism as culturally insensitive. A vigorous debate that the proposal has triggered reflects the cultural clashes being ignited by the growing influx of Muslim immigrants and the unease that visible symbols of Islam are causing in predominantly white Christian Australia since 1973 when the government relaxed its immigration policy. Critics say the bill smacks of anti-Muslim bias given how few women in Australia wear burqas. In a population...

(04-11) 06:57 PDT PARIS, France (AP) -- France's new ban on Islamic face veils was met with a burst of defiance Monday, as several women appeared veiled in front of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral and two were detained for taking part in an unauthorized protest. France on Monday became the first country to ban the veils anywhere in public, from outdoor marketplaces to the sidewalks and boutiques of the Champs-Elysees. French President Nicolas Sarkozy set the wheels in motion for the ban nearly two years ago, saying the veils imprison women and contradict this secular nation's values of dignity and...

An angry voice behind the veilMonday, 24 January 2011 This April, France will ban Muslim women from wearing face-covering veils. But one French woman Kenza Drider explains why she refuses to take off her niqab and why she’ll take her fight to the European Court of Human Rights if she gets fined.

Hamas Slams France Decision to Bar Islamic Veil‎ Islamic Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, slammed on Wednesday the French parliament for passing a law that bars Muslim women in the country from wearing Islamic veils. Ahmed Bahar, deputy speaker of the Hamas-dominated parliament and a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, said in a written press statement emailed to reporters that the decision "is unfair, racist and hurts Muslims' feelings."

<p>The French Senate has voted overwhelmingly for a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil everywhere from post offices to streets, in a final step toward a making it law.</p> <p>The Senate voted 246 to 1 Tuesday in favor of the bill, which has already passed in the lower chamber, the National Assembly.</p>

Protests in Pakistan, al-Qaida warnings, skittish Muslim tourists: France's plan to do away with burqa-style veils is already reverberating far beyond its borders. A bill to outlaw face veils, aimed at upholding French republican values, is expected to win Senate approval this month. If it passes this key hurdle, French diplomats will face a tough task ensuring the ban doesn't alienate governments, deter devout foreign shoppers loaded with cash, or provoke Islamist terrorists. It's a complex challenge for a country that works relentlessly to preserve its global diplomatic influence, its cherished secular ideals, and its status as the world's top...

Muslim women in Bosnia have protested against a bill put forward by the Bosnian Serb Party requiring a ban on veils.

PARIS -- French lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to ban the wearing of face-covering veils in public spaces, as Europe toughens its approach to integrating Muslim immigrant communities. On the eve of Bastille Day, when France celebrates the birth of what was to become a staunchly secular republic, the 577-seat National Assembly lower house voted by 335 votes to one for a total ban. The bill will now go to the Senate in September, but opponents of the ban in its proposed form worry that it will eventually be overturned by the judges of the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal body.

Paris, 27 May (AKI) - A decision by the French government to ban the Muslim burqa should be respected because each country has its own specific needs, said Amthal Sabah, sister of the Kuwaiti emir, Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah. Sabah spoke to Adnkronos International (AKI) about the controversial debate during the 'Forum for Volunteers in Kuwait and France' in Paris. "Every country has its own specificity," Sabah told AKI. "We do not interfere in French politics, and we do not accept France interfering in the politics of Kuwait." The French cabinet last week approved a bill making it illegal to...

The lawyer for a French Muslim woman fined for driving while wearing a full-face veil has accused police of abusing her human rights, as the government pushes to ban the garment. Police stopped the 31-one-year-old in the western city of Nantes and fined her 22 euros ($31.80) on the grounds that her niqab - an Islamic veil with a slit for the eyes - restricted her view so she could not drive safely. "This fine is not justified on road safety grounds and constitutes a breach of human and women's rights," said the woman's lawyer, Jean-Michel Pollono. He insists his...

Moves by France and Belgium to ban Muslim full face veils predictably angered some Islamic clerics, but other European states facing the same question are following the delicate debate carefully. France announced on Wednesday it would seek a law to ban Muslim residents and visitors from wearing a burqa or a niqab in public, while Belgium was poised to pass a similar ban until its ruling coalition collapsed on Thursday. World governments have in the main been slow to react to the French and Belgian decisions, but Iran was quick to add the proposed laws to its charge sheet against...

The French government is drawing up a law to ban Muslim women from wearing a full-face veil in public, despite advice that it could be illegal. The new law will stop the niqab and the burka from being worn in the streets, shops and markets and not just in public buildings. Nicolas Sarkozy is to press ahead with the bill claiming that the veil is an "assault on women's dignity". "We're legislating for the future. Wearing a full veil is a sign of a community closing in on itself and of a rejection of our values," Luc Chatel, a spokesman...

Last month, in a speech from the Elysée Palace, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his intention to enact a ban on the full Muslim veil. The decision—which was preceded by an extended public debate but was likely occasioned by recent regional elections in which the Socialist-led opposition delivered a drubbing to Mr. Sarkozy's party—would expand the scope of France's 2004 law that prohibits the wearing of headscarves and other conspicuous religious symbols at state schools. Mr. Sarkozy's ban on the full veil represents a draconian measure for a free society. Arguably, it is necessary and proper. But it won't prevail...

An Arab ambassador called for an instant divorce after discovering his veil-wearing fiancée had a beard and was cross-eyed, it emerged today. The would-be bride had hidden her face behind a Muslim niqab throughout their short courtship, meaning the diplomat had no idea what she looked like. But as soon as the marriage was contract was signed in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, he tried to kiss her, before coming face-to-face with her hairy face and strange squint. ‘He was absolutely horrified,’ said a wedding guest. ‘The bride had a nice personality, but there was a good reason why...

The French government has refused to grant citizenship to a foreign national on the grounds that he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil. The man, whose current nationality was not given, needed citizenship to settle in the country with his French wife. But Immigration Minister Eric Besson said this was being refused because he was depriving his wife of the liberty to come and go with her face uncovered. Last week, a parliamentary committee proposed a partial ban on full veils.

At Cairo University female students sported these masks “to circumvent a government ban on the full-face veil in exams.”

Countries from Italy to Sweden are debating the right of women to wear the niqab. Canada is the latest country to enter the fray, with the Muslim Canadian Congress desiring to ban it. Is such a ban possible in the U.S., where its prevalence is evident in certain urban centers, like Philadelphia? Muslim women's wearing of niqab, the veil covering everything but the eyes, and, by extension, the face-concealing mesh that is combined with a long garment to form the burqa in South Asia, has been introduced into the West as a purported religious obligation, and therefore, is put forward...