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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Some Muslim women wear a burqa. It’s a garment that covers nearly the entire body. The burqa doesn’t create much of a stir in conservative Islamic societies. But it is controversial in Europe. Tomorrow, the lower house of the French parliament is expected to approve a bill that would make it illegal to wear the burqa in public. Other European countries are considering similar legislation. In Spain, some towns aren’t waiting for the national government to act. The World’s Gerry Hadden tells us about their moves to ban the burqa.

GERRY HADDEN:  It seems each week another village in Spain bans the burqa. More than half a dozen town councils in the Catalonia region have enacted or are debating restrictions on wearing burqas in public buildings. And support for the bans comes from the left and the right. A councilman in the Catalonian village of Tarres has proposed a burqa ban. Funny thing is, no one’s ever seen a burqa in Tarres. Resident Jaime Palau says the burqa issue came out of nowhere.

SPANISH SPEAKING

JAIME PALAU: There aren’t even any immigrants here. The town population is 109. There’s no one here from anywhere else.

HADDEN: Palau says banning burqas in Tarres makes about as much sense as banning Polar Bears here.

SPANISH SPEAKING

PALAU: Since we don’t have polar bears it’s not a topic that interests us. Each town must deal with the issues that affect it.

HADDEN: Palau also sits on the town council.  He says he and most of his colleagues will vote against the measure. But that it has even come up reflects a growing effort by those on the European right to harness anti-Islamic sentiment. This woman, in the coastal town of Cunit, says she’s against burqas.

SPANISH SPEAKING

FEMALE SPEAKER: These women go around completely covered. You don’t even see their hands. You don’t know if it’s a man or a woman under there. It scares me.

HADDEN:  On the other end of the political spectrum, the left has also taken up the initiative. A burqa ban begins this fall in public buildings in the northeaster city of Lleida. Socialist mayor Angel Ros pushed for it. He’s quick to acknowledge that Muslims have enriched his city culturally and economically.  But he argues that any face coverings degrade women.

SPANISH SPEAKING

ANGEL ROS: We shouldn’t fall into the trap of saying we have to accept absolutely everything that immigrants do. We should respect everything except the lack of equality and tolerance. These are values that Europe has embraced and they cannot be renounced.

HADDEN: Just a few women in Lleida don either the burqa or the veil. But Mayor Ros says a few is a few too many.

SPANISH SPEAKING

ROS: These problems must be dealt with when they are first born, not when they’ve gotten entrenched.

HADDEN: Mayor Ros says the problem here started at one particular mosque, where leaders preach what he calls fundamentalist doctrine. Local reporter Maria Martinez Gomez thinks it’s more about politics.

SPANISH SPEAKING

MARIA MARTINEZ GOMEZ:  We have local elections just around the corner. And it’s easy to take advantage of this topic to win votes. But I don’t think a real problem exists here.

SPANISH SPEAKING

HADDEN: This young Muslim doesn’t think a real problem exists here either. He works at this store just across the street from the mosque in question. He says everyone should be allowed to act according to his or her beliefs. For example, he says, you might not want to take off your hat just because someone asks you to. At any rate, he says, such issues are decided by the Koran. But such issues are also being decided by voters. Spain’s minister for immigration recently quipped that if the trend continues, Spain will have more bans on burqas than burqas. For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden in Lleida, Spain.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Six years ago, France banned the wearing of Muslim head scarves in schools and other public buildings. Now the country is considering going further, banning women from wearing a full cover, the burqa, in public.  President Sarkozy appointed a parliamentary commission to study the wisdom of such a ban.  The commission is due to report back next week but whatever the findings, saw lawmakers are vowing to press ahead on a burqa ban.  John Laurensen reports from Paris.

JOHN LAURENSON:  An episode in what the French government is calling the great debate about French national identity.  It was the immigration minister’s idea and for the last couple of months in local halls and television studios up and down the country, people have been engaged in that very French activity of arguing about what it means to be French and more specifically over whether Muslim women in France can wear the burqa.  This was President’s Sarkozy’s contribution to the debate.  France is a country where women are free, he said, where church and state are separated, where the beliefs of each person are respected and where there is no room for the burqa.  Sarkozy is though, undecided about a ban.  He’s told Parliament it could pass a symbolic resolution rather than a law which would impose legal sanctions on women like this one I met in a mainly Muslim neighborhood of Paris.  Her veil didn’t even have a slit for the eyes.

FEMALE SPEAKER:  I’m very happy to wear it and it’s my decision.  Sometimes people bother me about it.  They say look at her and make comments but it’s my right.  If there’s a ban, they can put in prison, they can fine me but I won’t change.  I won’t take off my veil.

LAURENSON:  The intelligence services were asked to count how many women there are like this in France.  The answer, 2,000.  About a quarter of them converts, apparently keen to show their break from their old religion and culture.  It is in any case, a tiny proportion of Muslims and a far lower number than in the UK, which is why those who believe the burqa oppresses women, say it’s important to act now. Sihem Habchi is president of ‘Ni Putes, Ni Soumises’ ‘Neither Whores, Nor Doormats’, a feminist movement created by women from France’s poor city suburbs.  She is herself a Muslim.

SIHEM HABCHI:  If you don’t react now, it will be too late.  If you look at what’s happening in England, right now it’s very difficult to even have a debate because say really deeply are in the society and this kind of groups have support inside human rights organizations, you know.  How we can fight in Afghanistan, against the Taliban and support these kind of groups in Europe?

LAURENSON:  The presidents of the French Muslim Council, Mohammad Moussaoui, refuses to be drawn on what he thinks of the burqa.  What he does say is that Muslim scholars do not, on the whole, believe that women must wear full cover and that in Europe; the burqa is a barrier to integration and harmonious relations with non-Muslims.  He says rules barring it in places where it’s important to identify people such as town halls, banks and shops with video surveillance equipment would be understandable.  But a ban on full cover in the street would be asking for trouble.

SPEAKER:  When the police are forced to make the law respected in the street, it’ll create scenes which, in all probability, will be phoned on mobile phones and go around the world on video share sites.  Polarizing debate around the burqa also gives platform to people with confrontational points of view, which can only be bad for France.

LAURENSON:  Pro-ban MP’s like Jacques Myard, a member of President Sarkozy’s party, do not agree.

JACQUES MYARD:  It’s very simple.  Someone who’ll be, who wears a complete veil on her face, will be taken home and she won’t be able to go on the street in this way.  Of course, if people violate it permanently, then there should be a sanction and I think a fine of 750 Euros is something which would prevent people try to play with the law.

LAURENSON:  Other countries, notably the Netherlands, have decided against forbidding women to wear the burqa in the street.  Many in France on the left and also in Sarkozy’s own party, hope France too, will step back from the ban.  But this country have already proved, when it banned Muslim head scarves in school, that it’s ready to go further than any other to defends its feud of secularism.  And outlawing the burqa would be popular.  The latest opinion poll shows 74% of French people are in favor of a ban.  For The World, I’m John Laurensen, Paris.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

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.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

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.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.