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The 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: Religious freedom versus the right to a fair trial – that’s one way to summarize a case heard today by the Supreme Court of Canada. At the center of the case is a Muslim woman. She is the accuser in a sexual assault case and she wants to testify while wearing a niqab, an Islamic face veil that covers the entire face but the eyes. But the defendants assert that it’s their right to confront their accuser and observe her facial nuances as she testifies. University of Ottawa law professor, Carissima Mathen was at the Supreme Court hearing in Ottawa today. Carissima, this case has been ongoing for a few years. What can you tell us about it and how it’s kind of ebbed and flowed?

Carissima Mathen: Well, in this case, what happened was that at the preliminary enquiry accused counsel requested that the complainant remove her niqab. The judge performed an ad hoc questioning of the complainant and determined on the basis of some of the things she said that the religious beliefs was not sincere or valid and was prepared to order her to remove the niqab. It then went on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal which said that there needed to be a framework to govern these kinds of decisions. So it’s really about the larger question that would arise in any case where you have a witness who comes to court wearing a face covering that is worn for a religious reason.

Werman: And, the woman at the centre of this case says she is going only by the initials N.S. If N.S. is not permitted by the Supreme Court to wear a niqab when she faces the defendants, will she drop the case?

Mathen: We don’t know what the complainant would do in that case, but if you have a reluctant witness, ultimately the witness would be subject to a contempt of court order. That came out in the hearing today that the ultimate result could be that someone could in fact be jailed for their religious beliefs if the Crown determined that it wanted to go ahead. The more likely outcome in these kinds of cases is that the case simply would not proceed.

Werman: One of the Tenets of Islam is a requirement for modesty. Is this being seen as a lack of religious tolerance to ask this woman to remove her veil?

Mathen: Some members of the Muslim community in Canada argue quite strenuously that the Koran does not require veiling and so to see this as a question of religious belief is a bit of a red herring. That’s inconsistent with Canadian law on the scope of religious freedom. You know, there is an undercurrent in Canada, like the U.S. and other Western Nations, has been undergoing some debate about the role of Islam in public life and in society. But here, because it deals with the criminal justice system and the particular rights of the accused, there’s a little bit of a different aspect I think to some of the arguments.

Werman: In the United States a couple of years ago a case – Mohammed v Paruk, a Michigan District Judge dismissed a Muslim woman’s lawsuit against a car rental company because she refused to remove her niqab in the courtroom. Any sense of how this is going to play out at the Supreme Court in Ottawa?

Mathen: It’s really hard to tell at this point. The court was pressing hard about the accused rights here. The court was also wrestling with the aspect of how useful is demeanor evidence in any event. You know, there are studies that cast some doubt on that but, on the other side, we have an entire adversarial system that is predicated upon testimony from witnesses given in the ordinary courts which, of course, is that in our society people generally don’t cover their faces. So, there’s some really deep-seated societal beliefs at play here. To many people too, this is about a sexual assault complainant’s access to justice and while the niqab may make this seem a very exotic case, it’s actually consistent with other kinds of tactics that are sometimes used in a sexual assault trial to discomfort a witness, to make it less appealing for her to go forward. So, certainly, we think that that’s the important perspective.

Werman: It’s pretty complex. Is this a can of worms that Canada’s justice system would have just assumed to have kept sealed?

Mathen: I like to call it ‘a perfect storm’ of issues. I don’t think there would be a way to avoid this though, because, at some point when you have a more multi-cultural diverse society, you will have people who do observe certain cultural manners that will come into conflict with some of our criminal justice traditions.

Werman: Carissima Mathen, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, thanks so much.

Mathen: My pleasure. Thank you.

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.

• BBC coverage
• The niqab in Islam

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: In Egypt, there’s a debate underway over whether Muslim women should cover their faces. Now one of the country’s highest religious authorities has weighed in. Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi is head of Cairo’s Al Azhar University. He recently called on a young girl to remove her niqab, which covers the face. And he suggested that he would ban female university students from wearing it. But as Aya Batrawy reports from Cairo, many women in Egypt disagree with him.

[SOUND OF A YOUNG GIRL STUDYING THE KORAN]

AYA BATRAWY: Young women studying the Koran at Al Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s premier seat of learning. Here, they study in all-female classrooms. Most are dressed modestly and wear the hijab, or headscarf. But there are also hundreds studying here who choose to wear the niqab – a full length covering from head to toe, often black, with only a small opening for the eyes. Zizi even has her eyes obscured by a black cloth and wears black gloves. She started wearing the niqab just nine months ago and says she doesn’t care if Sheikh Tantawi himself asked her to remove it, she wouldn’t.

[SOUND OF ZIZI'S VOICE]

BATRAWY: [IN ARABIC] I respect him greatly, she says, but there is something greater and that is God.

Such defiance is rare, but debate over the niqab has touched a raw nerve in Egypt, where some see its increasing popularity as part of an Islamist threat to the state. Others regard wearing it as a religious duty. So when Sheikh Tantawi recently told a middle school student to remove her face veil, he sparked an outcry. According to local news reports, the sheikh told the girl that the niqab has nothing to do with Islam and is only a custom. And he was reported to have said that he would issue a fatwa, or religious edict, against wearing it in his university. In a later effort to clarify his remarks, the sheikh appeared on a popular news program hosted by a woman who does not cover her hair.

[SOUND OF THE TALK SHOW HOST AND TANTAWI SPEAKING]

BATRAWY: He said that 99 percent of scholars agree that the niqab is not mandatory, so he is not going to follow the one percent that disagrees. And he explained why he said he urged a limited ban on the niqab.

[SOUND OF THE TALK SHOW HOST AND TANTAWI SPEAKING]

MOHAMMED TANTAWI: [In Arabic] The higher council of Al Azhar banned the niqab in a class of all females led by a female teacher because who is she hiding her face from? Does she want to say that she is right and everyone else is wrong? If that girl wants when the class is over to put on the niqab, she is free to do so.

BATRAWY: But the ban at Al Azhar has yet to take effect and the controversy continues. Al Azhar and its head have been accused of carrying out political orders. The government has also banned the niqab from the dormitories of state universities – shutting out dozens of students who refused to un-veil. Dr. Akram Shaar, an independent member of parliament who belongs to the politically banned Muslim brotherhood, says such moves are aimed at keeping Islamists out of universities – and are an attack on civil liberties.

DR. AKRAM SHAAR: [IN ARABIC] Do we ban scantily dressed women from university dorms? No. We do not agree with banning scantily dressed women nor do we agree with banning women wearing the niqab because this is a personal decision based on free will.

BATRAWY: This is merely the latest twist in a long-running back and forth over the face veil in Egypt. Until the beginning of the 20th century, upper-class women wore a sheer, silky veil over the face as a sign of their status and wealth. Later the veil was seen as a mark of oppression – removing it was an act of women’s liberation. Now many women are claiming it as a religious and civil right. Asmaa is studying at Al Azhar. All her niqab reveals are her large brown eyes.

[SOUND OF ASMAA, SPEAKING IN ARABIC]

BATRAWY: It’s not right to force a girl to do something she doesn’t want to do, she says, we will not allow anyone to step on our rights and the freedom to choose. Dozens of others currently barred from the dorms of Cairo University and elsewhere agree – even at the cost of an education. For The World, this is Aya Batrawy, Cairo.

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.