Belgium's Bans and Bounties
There are none so fervent and outrageously rabid as those who convert. And a woman born in Belgium who converted to Islam has decided she would wear a niqab. Four years a Muslim, but so fully self-integrated and -involved in her mission to reveal herself born again as someone other than whom she was, at age 24 Stephanie Djato defied her country's law.Waiting at a stop for a streetcar, she was approached by police to whom she refused the request to produce identification. A scuffle ensued before she was arrested. Belgium, like France enacted a law banning the wearing of a burqa, or a niqab, both covering a woman's face, a custom adopted by some Muslim-majority cultures.
The woman's husband, accompanied by a number of other men arrived at the police station to lodge a complaint. As a result thirteen members of the Islamist group Sharia4Belgium were arrested. Not because they complained necessarily, but because they rioted violently, hurling metal barriers and bins at the police station to express their opinion both of the law and the rough handling Ms. Djato was exposed to.
On her part, Ms. Djato has launched a civil suit against the police. For their "attack on her modesty", and more to the point, for the physical injuries she suffered during the melee. Which, of course, she initiated by her resistance to the authority of the police.
"When someone is breaking the law we always have to intervene, demonstrations or no, the niqab is prohibited", explained a Brussels police spokesman. There is a maximum fine of $195 if someone is apprehended, wearing a full face veil in public.
And now, the battle has been joined. The Islamist group Sharia4Belgium has involved itself, and so has a Belgian right-wing group named Vlaams Belang. Claiming that the violence that ensued with Ms. Djato's arrest has had the effect of intimidating police from pursuing apprehension of any other women defying the law, it has offered a bounty of $325 to anyone who reports seeing a veiled woman, to the police.
"It's a textile prison for the women who have to live under it", said a spokesman for the group Vlaams Belang.
Labels: Conflict, European Union, Heritage, Human Relations, Immigration, Islamism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, June 07, 2012
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