Islamophobes urge Canadian government to ban burqas, niqabs in public -- no, wait...

by Robert Spencer

Actually it was a Canadian Muslim group -- a group that knows full well what these garments mean for the subjugation of women. But our enlightened multicultural Western governments know better, of course. "Muslim group urges gov't to ban burkas, niqabs in public," from The Canadian Press, October 7 (thanks to Maxwell):

TORONTO -- Middle Eastern garments designed to cover a woman's face are "medieval" and "misogynist" symbols of extremism with no basis in Islam, a Canadian Muslim lobby group said Wednesday as it urged Ottawa to ban the burka and the niqab.

The Muslim Canadian Congress called on the federal government to prohibit the two garments in order to prevent women from covering their faces in public -- a practice the group said has no place in a society that supports gender equality.

"To cover your face is to conceal your identity," congress spokeswoman Farzana Hassan said in a telephone interview, describing the issue as a matter of public safety, since concealing one's identity is a common practice for criminals.

The tradition of Muslim women covering their faces in public is a tradition rooted more in Middle Eastern culture than in the Islamic faith, Hassan added.

There is nothing in any of the primary Islamic religious texts, including the Qur'an, that requires women to cover their faces, she said -- not even in the controversial, ultra-conservative tenets of Sharia law.

Considering the fact that women are in fact forbidden from wearing burkas in the grand mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, it hardly makes sense that the practice should be permitted in Canada, she said.

"If a government claims to uphold equality between men and women, there is no reason for them to support a practice that marginalizes women."...