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The Dutch Cabinet has backed a partial ban on wearing the Islamic face-veil (niqab) in public places including schools, medical institutions and public transport.
The Dutch Cabinet has backed a partial ban on wearing the Islamic face-veil (niqab) in public places including schools, medical institutions and public transport.
“Face-covering clothing will in future not be accepted in education and healthcare institutions, government buildings and on public transport," the government said in a statement cited by Agence France Presse (AFP) on Friday, May 22.
According to the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, the ban would not apply to wearing the burqa or the niqab on the street, only for security reasons or “in specific situations where it is essential for people to be seen."
Defending the proposed ban, Rutte claimed that it is not "religiously motivated".
“The bill does not have any religious background," the Prime Minister said.
Approving the partial ban, the government said it had “tried to find a balance between people’s freedom to wear the clothes they want and the importance of mutual and recognizable communication”.
It went on saying: the cabinet “sees no reason for a general ban that would apply to all public places."
The proposal of the ban, which will be applied on government buildings, will be assessed by a panel of legal advisers.
Women violating the ban will be punished by a fine up to €405 (£288).
In 2011, the government imposed a ban on Muslim women face-veil amid a punch of new restrictions on immigrants, saying it flouts the Dutch way of live.
Muslims make up one million of the Netherlands’s 16 million population, mostly from Turkish and Moroccan origin.
It is estimated that between 100 and 500 women in the Netherlands wear niqab when they go out in public, according to State Broadcaster NOS
The wearing of niqab has become a sensitive topic across the European Union.
The garment, used by Muslim women, is already banned in France, Belgium and a city in Spain.
Many far-right movements across Europe have made the issue of banning niqab one of their main political objectives
While hijab is an obligatory code of dress for Muslim women, the majority of Muslim scholars agree that a woman is not obliged to wear the face veil, or niqab, but believe that it is up to women to decide whether to cover her face or not.
http://www.onislam.net/english/news/europe/486443-netherlands-imposes-partial-niqab-ban.html
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