A group of French lawmakers launched, a fierce campaign against the burka, a loose outfit covering the whole body from head to toe and wore by some Muslim women, demanding a national panel to curb it in public.
“Today, in many city neighborhoods, we see several Muslim women wearing the burka, which covers and fully envelops the body and the head, like a moving prison,” MP Andre Gerin said at a parliament session. Gerin is spearheading the drive for a parliamentary commission to be set up to look into what he described as a growing number of women donning the burka in France.
He wants the panel to issue recommendations on ways to curb wearing burka, dismissing it as “degrading” for women.
The Communist MP, who is also mayor of the southern city of Venissieux, home to a large North African immigrant population, says the sight of covered women has become common.
“We find it intolerable to see images of these imprisoned women when they come from Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia,” Gerin wrote in a text outlining his proposal.
“They are totally unacceptable on the territory of the French republic.”
A burka-wearing Moroccan was denied citizenship in July under the pretext that she was too “submissive” to her husband and that her dressing was “incompatible” with French values.
There are nearly seven million Muslims in France, making up the biggest Muslim minority in Europe.
Most French Muslims have Moroccan and Algerian roots.
Supported
The proposal already won the support of some 58 MPs, many of whom are from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. The proposal is expected to come up for a vote in the National Assembly soon.
A women rights group working in France’s largely-Muslim suburbs came out in favor of the proposal.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it,” said Sihem Habchi, head of Ni Putes, Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissive), organization.
The group also backed the call for a national debate on whether burka should be allowed in public places.
Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grande Mosque of Paris, also spoke in favor of the proposal for a commission over burka.
Boubakeur, former president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), told wearing burka is a sign that “some fundamentalist trends are gaining ground.”
He, however, underlined that the lawmakers must “listen to what the experts on Islam have to say” on the issue first.
While Hijab is an obligatory code of dress for Muslim women, the majority of scholars agree that a woman is not obliged to wear the face veil or the burka.
Scholars, however, believe that it is up to women to decide whether to cover their faces or not.
Current CFCM head Mohammed Mousaoui has cautioned that burka should not serve as a pretext to stigmatize the majority of Muslims or to the point the finger at the practice of Islam.
-Agencies