Immigrate to a different country? Then why not assimilate, too? Why even move if you don't want to adapt to the mores and culture? Worship in your temples, your mosques - fine. But don't expect us to cater to your dress if it covers up the entire face. We impose pictures on our driver's licenses for a reason - identification. Who the heck knows what is behind a fully covering veil?

to suraiyasaw - yours is a beautiful and revealing comment. I have lived in a muslim community (but I am not muslim) and it is true that the women I talked with and shared a friendship with hate these clothing restrictions. When we would travel away from their male partners they ripped off all that clothing faster than you could wink an eye. They expressed a genuine fear that originates in childhood from being oppressed and brainwashed into thinking this is how you should be a religious, acceptable muslim woman and if you don't wear these you risk violence to yourself. Remember they have no where else to go or live.

Before I express my very strong stand against those who champion the hijab, and for the French government in their ruling, let me first clarify that I am a Muslim living in the USA, and I do not subscribe to the hijab nor will I ever go to Saudi Arabia, and be subjected to the hypocritical laws of their land, not even for the Hajj. The simple reason is that I adhere to the laws set by God in the Holy Quran,and ONLY the Holy Quran. I reject the Sirah and all Hadiths as the Holy Quran was the final revelation that does not require any further addition or deletion of God's laws as stated in the original Scriptures, Torah, and Holy Quran. To the author of this article and to all Muslim women who cover themselves from the simple hijab (and baggy clothes) to the tents with tiny screens over their eyes; You champion this act because you have been duped into believing this is necessary to curtail evil. You fail to understand that you have "chosen" to do this only because of the embedded brainwashing over a long period of “patriarchal control" and more importantly patriarchal authority on religious law. This is no different than the women who have been brainwashed into believing that female circumcision is necessary to curtail female sexuality which is evil. To date this horrific act of genital mutilation is still championed, performed and forced on girls by their mothers and grandmothers in many "Islamic" countries. This is no different that the rites to prove a bride's virginity also championed by females across the globe! This is call being psyched, or being duped into believing what one wants you to believe.
On France and their ruling, so what about it? If you have to abide by Saudi Arabia's laws in covering yourself, you should have no problem with abiding by the French law for the opposite. The rationale for the Saudis is religion, the rational for the French is security. What more is there to understand?

Why don't Muslim men cover their faces? How come it is just Muslim women who must cover their faces? Maybe because it is men who make all the rules, and it is men who say what the women must do, and maybe men do not want to cover themselves because it is uncomfortable, ridiculous, and absurd; maybe men do not want to stand out and attract attention; maybe they do not want to cope with all of the complications and embarrassment, that they foist upon their women folk.

How come Muslim men so readily adopt Western clothes but forbid the women to do so? Aren't they hypocrites?

"I see American women and even feminists like Hillary having to cover their head while in most Islamic nations. Why are Muslims even migrating out of Islamic nations if their dress code is so stringent?"

Because they are taught the earth belongs to Allah and Allah has promised that they will rule the world. So far it has always worked for them (the exception being spain and they want spain back). As long as the kafirs bend backwards to accommodate the demands will never stop. See what is happening in Europe.

I see American women and even feminists like Hillary having to cover their head while in most Islamic nations. Why are Muslims even migrating out of Islamic nations if their dress code is so stringent?

The fact is, to be female in an Islamic culture is to endure crushing oppression. There is and there can be NO DEFENSE of that. Western society will not give even a single inch towards religious tolerance, on this subject of female oppression. If the Islamic establishment thinks that it vsm make any headway at all on this point, they can think again.

I believe that woman who wear a face veil do so to comply with male intimidation, and there is nothing that anyone can say to make me believe otherwise. Of course, women who are forced to wear the face veil are not going to admit it, for they are under male intimdation and threat to pretend that they like it.

If a woman truly is so repressed that she cannot come out into public without textiles covering her from head to toe, then that is matter for a psychiatrist. This is obssessive compulsion, not religion.

If Islamic women wanted to walk around in public naked because of their reliigon, would that be ok too?

"If France's ban is not an example of Europe's ill concealed feelings of cultural supremacy"

European culture is better than Muslim culture. It is more productive in arts, sciences and economics. It provides more freedom to women and minorities. Perhaps Elizabeth Tenety could provide examples of Muslim cultural superiority or perhaps she just has a liberal kneejerk reaction that causes her to discount the cultural heritage that allows her the freedom to live as she does and openly express her opinions in a newspaper.

Burkas and all face coverings must be banned. When will muslims criticize wrongs in their religion? In muslim countries burkas, chadors, tents etc make women invisible; the way they should be in Islam. The irony in western countries is that this very invisible woman is a tool for muslims to further their islamic agenda. The French hostage taking and release will most probably be based upon the womans hijjab ban in France. Islamic censorship is coming to a neighborhood near you, koran burning made the western press and free speech pundits put their tails between their legs.

One could make a safety argument as well as a security argument against the burka. Since it severely restricts peripheral vision, it puts the wearer at greater risk of being struck by autos. The state currently forces drivers to wear seat belts using the same rationale.

The burka in public places has already shown itself as a tool of criminals as posted above about the UK. It provides anonymity and concealment. If you wore any like garb into a bank or jewelry store you would be kicked out immediately as a security risk. It is the same thing on the street for the general public.

Public safety trumps ancient cultural oppression.

AN article in the Jerusalem Post on January 9th 2009 gives cogent reasons for banning face coverings in public.

"In 'Ban the burka - and the niqab too,' two years ago, I documented how these two items pose criminal and terrorist dangers. Is that still the case? Criminality: Jordan offers a glimpse into the potential for niqabs and burkas as illegal accessories. One news report indicates that 50 people committed 170 crimes using Islamic garments during the past two years, or roughly one incident every four days - a crime wave that has prompted some Jordanians to call for restricting or even banning these Islamic head coverings. No other country reports nearly so many head-garment-related crimes, but Philadelphia, Pennsylvania boasts multiple robberies (three banks and one real estate leasing office) in a 16-month period in 2007-08, including the murder of a police officer. The United Kingdom has the West's second-worst record. Jewelry stores - some owned by Muslims - have been targeted in the West Midlands, Glasgow and Oxfordshire. Two travel agencies were attacked in the adjoining towns of Dunstable and Luton, while an armored truck driver was assaulted in Birmingham. Robbery is not the only motive; teenagers in London used niqab-style face coverings when stabbing a younger boy. OTHER CRIMINAL incidents in the West include East European pickpockets wearing Islamic headgear in Rotterdam, and a burgundy burka'ed armed robbery at the People's Bank in Hiddenite, North Carolina (population: 6,000). The man who abducted Elizabeth Smart, 14, of Salt Lake City, forced her to wear a niqab-like garment that hid her in plain sight for nine months. In response, banks, credit unions, jewelry stores and schools are limiting access to persons who are covered."

All face coveriings, including Lone Ranger masks and Nixon masks should be banned in public in the interests of public safety.

This whole article is conflating false equivalences, a classic technique of Islamists and their apologists. We all now that overwhelming majority, i bet it isn't even close, the women wear "the beekeeper suit", because their neanderthal husband or father forces them to. Whom are these people kidding? They want us to believe that these are the moderates. Do these moderates want to live in the 21st century or do they want to be living in 7th century arabia. Why the hell don't they tell the OIC countries to take out the hijab restrictions, on visitors. Again no body asking a neanderthal from Algeria to move to France or Belgium, they can all go enmasse to Saudi Arabia, instead.

"But if another woman wants to be covered from head to toe, whether it's in a bonnet and prairie skirt or a tent with eye slits, it's not my place (or anyoone else's) to tell her to uncover any more than it would be her place (or anyone else's) to tell me to cover up."

Baloney. That is why the French have a penalty for the males who force women to cover up, or males who threaten women if they won't cover up. How many news do you want to see from around the world about women being threatened and forced to wear the body shroud? If a woman really wants to wear a body shroud in the west of her own free will, then perhaps she should be treated like the one who wants to walk around naked. Both of them need a ticket to the closest mental hospital.

lepidopteryx:

Try wearing a mask into a bank. It is against the law.
Try wearing a mask at the airport these days.

"People are not obligated to accet medical care against their will"

Get real. Actual case: a husband brings a wife giving birth to a hospital. He demands and threatens the male doctor if he will deliver. If the hospital doesn't deliver, do you know how much damages they are opening themselves up for? It is not just gyno docs that come under threats.

Niqab or a hijab is a political statement pure and simple. The woman wearing it may not know but that what it is in the west. It is equivalent to saying f*ck you to the host society in the west. The kafirs are slowly waking up to that fact. France that has had to deal with the aggression of the muslims is merely the at the leading edge of the laws that will be passed trying to block the stealth jihad underway.

Akafir,

A bandit wearing a burqa is no better and no worse than a bandit wearing any other kind of facial concealment. The issue is that the bandit robbed a bank, not that s/he was hiding his/her face behind a burqa and not a Nixon mask. We don't outlaw rubber masks of ex-presidents, even though some people use them for nefarious purposes. While I may get some strange looks for doing so, it is perfectly legal for me to wear a Nixon mask in public, even if it's not Halloween.

As for physician preference, people do die because of various prohibitions their religion makes regarding medical care. People are not obligated to accet medical care against their will.
Jehovah's Witnesses will hemorrhage to death rather than accept a blood transfusion.
Some women will refuse to have a male OB/GYN because they don't want any man other than their husbands seeing their naughty bits. Other women will refuse to have a female OB/GYN because they are afraid that if another woman touches their naughty bits, that will make them a lesbian and they will burn in hell.
My family knows that if my life is in danger, I don't care who shows up to help or whether or not they have danglies. If I need blood, somebody please go make a withdrawal from the blood bank.

Bobo: "...the burqa has no place in western countries where we respect women's freedom and identity. We don't want overbearing parents, boyfriends or spouses to deny a woman's freedom by forcing them to cover their faces. If you want to wear a burqa then go back to where you came from, we don't want it here."

Do you not see the contradiction there?
"We respect women's freedom and identity...If you want to wear a burqa, go back where you came from."
Personally, I prefer to wear Daisy Dukes and halter tops until the weather gets too cold for them. But if another woman wants to be covered from head to toe, whether it's in a bonnet and prairie skirt or a tent with eye slits, it's not my place (or anyoone else's) to tell her to uncover any more than it would be her place (or anyone else's) to tell me to cover up.

"So if I chose to wear a Lone Ranger mask just cuz I liked to pretend I was riding with Jay Silverheels, that would be okay, but not if I wore a veil because I thought it showed respect to my deity of choice? Makes no sense.
As long as I am willing to remove it in order to allow law enforcement to compare the face on skull to the face on my ID, it shouldn't matter if I keep my face covered while out and about."

How about:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3745402

where else would you say the face should be visible? Should the police be a woman who checks the face so the woman does not have to be exposed to a man as Sharia requires? That is what many countries have to implement to accommodate Niqab. How about a male doctor examining a female? Want to do a search and see how many doctors have been assaulted because they dared to save a woman's life and did not wait for a female doctor to arrive?
Muslims know the road to Sharia is paved with liberal fools who celebrate multi-culti diversity with locks on their brains.

"Whatever the reasons for France and Belgium's decisions to ban face veils, if the objective was to liberate Muslim women and assimilate European Muslims into the larger population, then both nations have failed marvelously."

The article is based on a wrong assumption. The french are playing defense at the moment against a very agressive large muslim minority that wants to bring in Sharia.
The aim was neither to liberate or to have the muslims to assimilate. The aim was to draw some red lines against the visible signs of Shaira that is the front end of steal jihad against the west underway. Turkey banned the hijab because the secular muslims recognized clearly what is taking the western countries decades to learn that the Islamist use women's hijab and niqab as a politically agressive in your face wedge to push other social aspects of Sharia. Islamist are bringing back the hijab in Turkey. Accept niqab, and then how far behind are muslim only swimming pools from which Kafirs are excluded? How about women only community halls? Before long, the kafirs find themselves living in Sharia land in their own countries. Just take a close look in what is happening in UK, france, netherlands, etc.

So if I chose to wear a Lone Ranger mask just cuz I liked to pretend I was riding with Jay Silverheels, that would be okay, but not if I wore a veil because I thought it showed respect to my deity of choice? Makes no sense.
As long as I am willing to remove it in order to allow law enforcement to compare the face on skull to the face on my ID, it shouldn't matter if I keep my face covered while out and about.

Sarkozy was 100% corret, the burqa has no place in western countries where we respect women's freedom and identity. We don't want overbearing parents, boyfriends or spouses to deny a woman's freedom by forcing them to cover their faces. If you want to wear a burqa then go back to where you came from, we don't want it here. Mark Montgomery boboberg@nyc.rr.com

“…because Sarkozy fails to see how this issue (banning the burqa) has international consequences beyond his immediate political survival.”
This “extortion” is becoming an all too familiar refrain for Muslims. They threaten us in the name of their extremists if we object to the building of a mosque on top of Twin Towers, or if we ban the burqa or if we do this or do that. Their extremists hate us since 1400 years ago for simply who we are. Many who wear the burqa in the West admit they had not worn it in their original homelands. It along with the headscarf is statement about rejecting the dominant culture. There should be no doubt in our minds about that. If they reject our culture they should not live among us. If they want to live among us they should integrate and first step would be not to look conspicuously different.