For the record, I am way against all these kinds of bans. As much as I appreciate Geert Wilders and all like him in Europe, they are making a serious error. The answer to Islam is more freedom not less. If women want to wear nothing or wear a burka that is their right. And it also should be my right to not allow naked women into my business (or allow), or women wearing the symbols of the greatest oppressive movement possibly of all time, Islam.

Obviously all laws banning covering your face in banks and on public transport and so on simply need to be applied to burkas. In other words, no new laws please. Just stop making exceptions to the ones we already have for Muslims. It is so damn simple.

Meanwhile, from The Local

Photo credit: Antoine Taveneaux (file)

Swiss parliamentarians vote for burqa ban

Swiss parliamentarians approved on Wednesday a far-right move to impose a ban on the burqa or other face coverings in some public places, including on public transport.

With 101 votes against 77, the lower chamber of the house approved the motion titled “masks off!”.

The draft bill will still have to be examined by the upper chamber.

Put forward by Oskar Freysinger, a politician of the Swiss far-right SVP party, the motion requires “anyone addressing a federal, cantonal or communal authority exercising his or her functions, to present themselves with their faces uncovered.”

Burqas would also be banned on public transport, while “authorities can ban or restrict access to public buildings to such individuals in order to guarantee the security of other users.”

Explaining the motion, Freysinger noted that “at a time when insecurity is growing in our streets, more and more people are hiding their faces behind a balaclava, a mask or a burqa.

“This makes it impossible to identify these people, a fact that is particularly troublesome in case of violence or identity checks,” he noted.

France was the first European Union country to impose a ban on the burqa in public places, while Belgium joined it some months later.

On September 16th, the Dutch government also agreed to a ban on the full Islamic veil under a deal with the far-right party of the anti-immigration MP Geert Wilders.