FRANCE: Two French women resist controversial law banning public wearing of niqab or burqa

Record ID: 1537351

  • Title: FRANCE: Two French women resist controversial law banning public wearing of niqab or burqa
  • Date: 19th May 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF HASSAN TALKING TO A NEIGHBOUR
  • Embargoed: 3rd June 2011 10:11
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France, France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA3ZQAHPUDUDRNUWDXV2W14LSOT
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: France's ban on full face veils, a first in Europe, went into force one month ago, making anyone wearing the Islamic "niqab" or "burqa" in public liable to a fine of 150 euros (212.68 U.S dollars) or forced to take lessons in French citizenship. But two French women living in the south of the country have chosen to resist it despite the penalties.
    Marie Hassan who lives in Marseille has been wearing her niqab for the past five months. She said was recently stopped by policemen and asked to identify herself. According to Hassan she was approached by eight policemen who got out of two cars and asked for her identity card. She said the experience made her feel humiliated.
    "When they (policemen) are here, they tell you 'Don't move, you have to identify yourself'. One stands here and the other over there and they say, 'Don't move, you have to identify yourself here'. We have to remove the veil, to expose our dignity in front of everyone. It's an abuse," she said.
    President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right government, which pushed the law through parliament in October last year, rolled out a public relations campaign with posters, pamphlets and a website to explain the ban and how it will be enforced.
    Guidelines in the pamphlet forbid police from asking women to remove their burqa or full-face veil in the street. They will instead be escorted to a police station and asked to remove the veil there for identification.
    Hassan said she was called to the police station in the days that followed, where she was reminded of the rules of the law and further questioned.
    "I was told this is procedure and that I have to answer the questions," she said.
    "I am not obliged to say where I go, that is my business, it concerns only me. I'm not obliged to say which mosque I go to, to say if I'm a Salafi or not. This concerns only me, it's my faith, my religion. I'm not obliged to say why I chose Islam, what my motivations were. This concerns only me," she added.
    The police did not hand her a fine, but gave her a document spelling out the guidelines of the law and a warning to refrain from committing another infraction within the year, she said. But 23-year-old Hassan insisted she will continue wearing the niqab.
    "I won't change, I won't change. I will resist everything, like pressures from police forces. I won't take my niqab off," she said.
    Hassan said she began wearing the full-face veil as a personal and spiritual choice. Her ex-husband, whom she recently divorced, was strongly opposed to it.
    In Avignon, in south-east France, Kenza Drider who was at the fore-front of the fight against the burqa-ban law last April, said that while little has changed since the law has come into effect, it has created an increase in discrimination towards women who do wear the niqab or burqa.
    "All they (the French government) managed to achieve with this law, is to have increased the hatred against women wearing a niqab," she said.
    "Today, I am living my life like I do on any other day but under constant pressure, under the nasty eye of others, daily insults, verbal aggressions and even physical aggressions .So congratulations to the government which has managed to make French citizens believe that we were France's biggest problem," she added.
    Drider, of Algerian origin, is a mother of four and spends most of her time in her home town of Avignon. She has been wearing some sort of veil since the age of eleven, and the decision to wear the full-face veil was her own, she said, rather than the result of family pressure.
    Drider, who says it is her constitutional right to dress how she wishes, said the ban violates her human rights, and if she were to receive a fine she would take her case to the European court of Human Rights.
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