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Don’t Leave Vigilantes to Enforce Burqa Bans

Don’t Leave Vigilantes to Enforce Burqa Bans

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- On Thursday, a ban on all kinds of full-face covering, including some forms of Muslim dress, took effect in the Netherlands. Though it won’t be enforced rigorously, it may expose the small number of women who wear such clothes to xenophobic attacks.

The Dutch ban, first proposed by nationalist Geert Wilders and pushed through in 2016 by the centrist government of Mark Rutte as he vied with Wilders for the conservative vote, requires people to remove all face coverings – not just burqas, but helmets and balaclavas, too – in public buildings, schools and hospitals on pain of a minimum fine of 150 euros ($167).

The police, however, were quick to signal that they wouldn’t treat the offense as a priority – and that they don’t want to prevent burqa-wearing women from reporting other crimes. Public transportation workers also refused to enforce the ban because handing over burqa-wearers to the unenthusiastic police would disrupt their work. There were also disapproving noises from hospitals and major municipalities, including Amsterdam.

This, of course, wouldn’t be the first law in the Netherlands to be conspicuous by its non-enforcement: The country’s tolerance of soft drugs is technically unlawful. But there’s a twist: For most crimes, Dutch residents can make citizens’ arrests. As the police confirmed in response to a journalist’s tweeted question, this applies to the burqa ban, too. Given that up to 20 percent of Dutch voters support various nationalist parties, this could make life difficult for the few hundred Muslim women living in the country who cover their faces in public.

The possibility of citizens’ arrests – or, rather, legalized assault – goes against the very reason burqa bans are legally permissible in Europe.

After France became the first European country to ban all forms of full-face covering in public places in 2010, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the legislation, citing the concept of “living together.” That principle holds that, in a diverse society, there should be no obstacles to communication – including the recognition of people and the reading of their facial expressions. This idea has informed subsequent bans in Belgium, Bulgaria, Austria and Denmark. Security concerns also play a role.

But if anyone can grab a woman for wearing a religious garment and hold her until reluctant police arrive and probably let her go, that hardly makes for a more convivial and safer environment.

It could also be argued that a Muslim woman should be able to reconcile her religious beliefs with keeping her face uncovered. The Koran, after all, doesn’t directly dictate that it be fully covered, hence the broad variety of Muslim dress. Indeed, some Muslim countries, particularly in North Africa, have various forms of the burqa ban in place because full veils aren’t traditional there. In the end, it’s a matter of culture rather than religion.

But then, the burqa bans themselves, though ostensibly motivated by the ideas of open communication and security, are, of course, a matter of cultural politics. Otherwise, the other restrictions on what Muslims can wear – like the French ban on the burkini – wouldn’t exist. For politicians who militate for all kinds of clothing bans, the concealing swimsuit, like the burqa, is a symbol of “political Islam” – a form of disloyalty to the secular state.

The “political Islam” theory is far less legitimate than the “living together” one. It assumes something about the burqa-wearing women that can’t be deemed to be true simply on the basis of their dress. They are just as likely to be deeply traditional as radicalized.

It’s normal for a country’s laws to demand that a person be recognizable and that facial expressions be readable in certain situations, such as a court of law. It should be reasonable for a police officer or judge to ask someone to remove a veil when necessary. It should also be normal for companies to decide how their employees must be dressed when serving customers. But society cannot demand fully open communication from someone who may not want it at all times – for example, on the bus or while waiting to see a doctor. 

Governments should be able to set clear rules on face-covering clothes that don’t go any further than is absolutely necessary. When these rules are needlessly broad, they merely pander to the prejudices of a certain part of society – and create situations where bigots may try to enforce these rules when the government apparatus won’t.

The extremely concealing burqa isn’t the only form of Muslim dress to fall under the ban. Others, such as the niqab, also do. I use the word burqa throughout merely because of its broad currency,even it is imprecise.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Leonid Bershidsky is Bloomberg Opinion's Europe columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.

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