The Taliban would applaud

This article was published in International Herald Tribune 26 January 2010

It is easy to see that a woman’s human rights are violated when a government requires her to wrap her body and face in an all-concealing veil, as the Taliban used to do when it ran Afghanistan. It should be just as easy to see the violation when a French parliamentary panel recommends, as it did this week, barring women who wear such veils — the burqa and the niqab — from using public services, including schools, hospitals and public transportation. (Muslim head scarves have been banned from public school classrooms since 2004.)

People must be free to make these decisions for themselves, not have them imposed by governments or enforced by the police.

Instead of condemning the recommendation, President Nicolas Sarkozy seems determined to outdo it. He already has declared that full-body veils are “not welcome” in France. His party’s leader in Parliament wants to pass a law that bans women wearing burqas and niqabs from the streets. The Taliban would be pleased. The rest of the world should declare its revulsion.