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There’s a religious debate taking place in Canada. Some Muslims there say they want the country to set some limits on freedom of religion.The Muslim Canadian Congress is lobbying to ban burkas or any other kind of Islamic face covering. Anita Elash reports from Toronto.
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MARCO WERMAN: Another type of religious debate is taking place in Canada. Some Muslims there say they want the country to set some limits on freedom of religion. The Muslim Canadian Congress is lobbying to ban burkas or any other kind of Islamic face covering. Anita Elash reports from Toronto.
[PRAYER]
ANITA ELASH: Friday afternoon at the Umar Bin Khatap Mosque in downtown Toronto. About 100 people have gathered in the basement of a grey brick building on a street that’s filled with shops selling halal pizza and East African sweets. The men are kneeling at the front of the hall. The women are at the back hidden behind black office partitions. Most are wearing multi-colored shawls, floor-length skirts, and headscarves that cover their hair. But some are fully covered revealing only their eyes. Salehah al Shehri came here from Saudi Arabia two months ago. Outside the mosque I tell her that some people in Canada want to ban what she’s wearing – the niqab – which covers her face and reveals only her eyes. She says she doesn’t speak English very well so her husband translates.
SALEHAH AL SHEHRI: [SPEAKING ARABIC]
HUSBAND TRANSLATING: She said I’m so sorry to hear this because what we hear that this is a country of freedom. If she’s not doing something bad to the people around her, so why she’s not right to have her freedom.
ELASH: The niqab and the very similar burka are still rarely seen in Canada. But the Muslim population is growing fast and so is the number of women covering their face. And some Muslims are arguing that those women are hurting Canadian society and themselves.
TAREK FATAH: They cannot use religion to hide their identity. This is an insult to my faith, to my community … .
ELASH: Tarek Fatah is the founder of the Canadian Muslim Congress. His group has long opposed face coverings for Muslim women. So when the influential Islamic scholar Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi said the burka should be banned in Egypt the CMC called on the Canadian parliament to ban it in public places here. Fatah says the practice is a threat to public safety. Several banks have been robbed by men wearing burkas. And he says it’s a threat to women’s rights in a democracy.
FATAH: Anyone who propagates this has one objective – to make sure that the women in their family become unemployable and therefore dependent on them and therefore pose no economic, social, or political threat to their power structure within the family or the community.
ELASH: Fatah says he’s concerned the growing number of women who do cover their face is a sign that Canadian Muslims are becoming more radical. The Muslim population here is diverse and well educated. But some experts say that many Muslims feel disenfranchised by discrimination and high unemployment and may be easy targets for radical leaders looking for new recruits. Even so constitutional law expert David Schneiderman says Canada has strong human rights laws and an official policy of multiculturalism. So there’s little chance it would ever ban the burka.
DAVID SCHEIDERMAN: I think the guiding principle here is that governments are expected to accommodate rather than ban forms of religious expression. And governments are expected to abide by those human rights commitments and probably no government wants to be seen to be trampling on charter rights and freedoms.
[PRAYER]
ELASH: Back at the Umar Bin Khatap mosque one young woman says that calls to ban the burka might actually encourage the radicalization opponents are worried about. Samiya Muselem is 18 and wears only a black hijab that frames her olive-skinned face. But she supports the right of other to veil.
SAMIYA MUSELEM: It really angers me and it makes me like question the society like how far are you going to go? And when you do that kind of stuff to people they think that you’re breaking them down but little do you know you’re making them more stronger because they’re going to hold onto it more better instead of like vice versa – taking it off.
ELASH: She adds that many of her young friends have recently donned the burka to let people know they’re Muslim and proud of it. For The World I’m Anita Elash in Toronto.
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