Selective banning of Niqab wearing in U.K.

I'm not so sure about teachers identifying students by their face, I suspect that most can't recall the entire student body, so they're not going to stop a person they don't recognise.

However, a niqab does allow one to hide their face from video cameras, and remain anonymous while committing crimes.

As such I'm going to have to side with andi on this one, the potential threat is greater then the potential good.

Originally Posted by GDwarf

As such I'm going to have to side with andi on this one, the potential threat is greater then the potential good.

I think it depends on the society. It would be premature to institute a ban without good cause. I would not support this ban for the state that I live in.

- J

I think that there for sure is a security risk. But we must allow this risk in the name of FREEDOM! I want to live in a country were diversity of beliefs is politely tollerated. Unlike the many muslem countries of the world, where freedom of religion is not tollerated. As western nations lets be an example to the opressors, that freedom is better than intollerance.

If somebody wanted to walk into a school and cause harm to the students and faculty of the school, they could do it, and there are many ways that they could do it. A Niqab just gives another option. Its really not increasing the risk. Sports bags are not banned in schools(as far as I know), and yet a large sports bag could contain several firearms.

Now if sombody's religion called for their kids to walk around with a sharpend sword I would object. But somthing as innocent, harmless, and modest as a veil should be acceptable.

Niqabs aren't required by anything but the most conservative of Muslim sects - they're simply recommended, and a person is more than free to not wear it or wear a hijab in its place. :O

However, in the UK, a country with only 60 million legal residents and almost 2 million legal Muslims, niqabs tend to show up a lot.

And a knife and a sports bag is simply a tool, ChrisHoulihan. It's as innocent as a piece of cloth, until it's put in the wrong hands. A knife can be used by someone to help them commit crimes very easily, and a sports bag can hold whatever a person puts into it. The same problem exists with niqabs. If a person wears a niqab in order to help them commit a crime, it makes it far more difficult for the criminal to be properly identified and for proper action to be taken.

If we're going to talk about other options, if I wanted to rob someone and not be identified, I could wear blackface, a ski mask, or a mask of an ex-president. But all of those options draw far more suspicion than a person in a niqab in a country where Islam is the second most common religion...

Originally Posted by andi

If we're going to talk about other options, if I wanted to rob someone and not be identified, I could wear blackface, a ski mask, or a mask of an ex-president. But all of those options draw far more suspicion than a person in a niqab in a country where Islam is the second most common religion...

This is exactly the point. Its about being overly religiously tolerant. After all, here in the UK where the old bill are now allowed to stop or arrest you on suspicion of anything without any proof, i couldnt walk around with a big hood up and a rag round my face without being stopped by the police. Yet it is unlikely that every (or any) muslim women wearing niqabs will be stopped. Yet both a niqab or hood-and-rag could be used as a diguise for a criminal.

Due to popular demand via PM (Jehanne, haha) I will give some quick thoughts on the subject which I brought forth.

As a teacher, there are two major things necessary for communication...the student should be able to hear me...and I should be able to hear the student.

If, for some reason, the material of which the niqab is made is impeding sound transmittance, I would suggest a thinner (perhaps even semi-transparant, if allowable) veil.

A good teacher can use many different forms of communication... for instance, although eye contact is extremely important for me, I am very good at reading body language. And even though I use my hands an awful lot to communicate on a more personal and descriptive level, my own facial expressions and voice can make up for immobility of the hands, when necessary.

So long as I know the kid's not sleeping or making faces at me (haha, SPACEbALLS!!!), I'm alright ;0)

I really see little point to the no-hat/head-covering rule in school (although I enforce it since it IS still a rule). The idea comes from the idea that it is disrespectful to have your head covered when you enter a building. Again, so long as a student isn't avoiding the instructor and/or activities in the class by having their head covered, I'm alright with it.

And as for being distracting to other students--that would be a perfect opportunity for me to share with them how feable their minds must be if they are more concerned about someone else's garments than their own education ;0)

(more later, perhaps?)

EDIT: I find it interesting that people are concerned about young ladies in Niqabs committing heinous acts against fellow students and their teachers ;; Wow..

Not people who wear them legitimately, BBD, more people who use them simply to hide their ID.

Can anyone give an estimation of what the size of the niqab wearing population really is? Either overall or in relation to any particular school system...

The only thing close to a statistic I was able to find was that "less than 5% of British Muslim women" wear it, which could be anywhere from 0 to 50,000+ in total in that area, according to the British census. But a lot of newspapers have noted a sharp increase in its use among younger Muslim girls, starting at about the age of 13.

:::shrugs::: The percentage of Muslims to the rest of the population is far larger than it is here and far more conservative, and that's about all I know for certain.

People over in the United Kingdom are just plain paranoid. How long before we see and England similar to the England of V for Vandetta, or Children of Men?

Look at these examples:
Hoods have been banned in public places: Source
A call for a Ban on kitchen Knives: Source

First of all, I'm not sure how much this is British . As far as I know it's English law, and no, they're not the same thing .

Personally I'm all for this measure, although my concerns arn't so much about security. If you're going to spend your time sitting behind a veil that masks the majority of your face, you're effectively isolating yourself from your environment and choosing to sit behind a communicative barrier.

Most of our communication is non-verbal, a lot of which comes from facial expression. Obviously, if you're going to cover your face then you're depriving yourself of your most basic communicative facilities. Humans can produce some 20,000 facial expressions all of which are open to interpretation by those around us. Even the slightest raise of one corner of your mouth gives so much information to the person who you're talking to, and it can be very difficult to read somebody if you can only see their eyes.

To be honest, I think this i pretty much just common sense :/ .

Float your mouth.

Originally Posted by ChrisHoulihan

People over in the United Kingdom are just plain paranoid. How long before we see and England similar to the England of V for Vandetta, or Children of Men?

Look at these examples:
Hoods have been banned in public places: Source
A call for a Ban on kitchen Knives: Source

I dont think were going to go that far any time soon. Its all damn Blairism and new labour getting ridiculous about health and safety. Does anyone know how much he actually legislates? 45 criminal justice bills in the 9 years he has been in power. Thats more than in the previous 90 years i think. The guy wants to be seen doing something, it doesnt matter whether that thing is retarded as long as the public think he is protecting them. Thats probably why things like the Niqab debate end up in banning. I think its probably a good idea but for different reasons. mainly fairness. I cant go around with stuff tied round my face so why should others?

Before I express my full out, thoughtful, debatitive (word?) opinion, can someone explan to me how wearing a religious Niqab could possible harm anyone. Of course unless the UK has gone into the racist state of determing security measures by religion.

This article sums up my entire view in one go!

Several years ago, I started work at a prestigious sixth form college on the outskirts of London. I was extremely excited about the job, teaching A-level English to bright, highly motivated students.

These were young adults and treated as such so, for example, there was no school uniform, no phone calls home to chase up missing students and no detentions. Deliciously different to other schools I'd taught in, I imagined erudite, challenging discussions and debate with a group of clever, strong-minded girls and boys.

The niqab which covers the body from head to toe, with only a small opening for the eyes, has been banned from schools along with other religious dress

So I was utterly flummoxed when I entered the classroom on my first day to be confronted by three girls in the back row, sitting side by side wearing the niqab, the full-face veil which leaves only a tiny slit for the eyes. Recovering myself, introductions were made. The voices behind the veils told me their names but - because there were no faces to put them to - I promptly forgot them.

In the year that I taught the class, the girls never sat next to anyone else. They never entered into class discussion and I admit that I never asked them their opinions about the books that we read. Simply, they embarrassed me. Unable to see their faces, they had no individuality. I couldn't call them by name unless I assumed they would always sit in the same order.

Not being able to see their faces, I couldn't read their emotions. I had no idea if they smiled when a joke was cracked. I didn't know if an account of slavery moved them to tears as it did some of the other students, let alone if they understood what I was teaching. The niqab left them utter strangers to me and their classmates, who simply forgot about them. The veil that those young women wore utterly isolated them.

They sat in the classroom with us, but they weren't part of the group. They were effectively invisible. As their teacher, I know I should have made more effort to include them, but it was much easier not to do so. After all, there were 15 teenagers in that room, all expressing their opinions with happy confidence.

No one was unpleasant to the three shadows at the back. They just effectively ceased to exist. The lack of any real communication with me or their peers was reflected in the trio's exam results. They passed, but only just. While most of the group waltzed off to university with 'A' grades, these young women gained just 'D' and 'E' passes. And that, I think, is the point of the niqab. It is designed to take away women's individuality, their confidence and their hope.

So it was with delight that I read this week that schools will be able to ban pupils from wearing the full-face veils. Teachers must - naturally - make efforts to accommodate religious clothing in the classroom, but the new rules stress the importance of teachers and pupils being able to make eye contact.

It comes only weeks after Schoolgirl X - so called to protect her anonymity - lost her fight to be allowed to attend lessons wearing the veil. She was 12 years old. At this tender age, she apparently decided that she wanted to go to school shrouded from head to toe in black, with only a tiny slit in her headdress, out of which she could peer demurely at the world.

Judge Stephen Silber, in dismissing her claim that the ban on the full-face veil was an infringement of her human rights, accepted the school's argument that the veil was at odds with its ethos of equality.

He also upheld the school's argument that other Muslim girls at the school might feel pressured into wearing the niqab if she had been successful. It is this realisation that the niqab is not just a black robe adopted by some female followers of Islam, but, I believe, a symbolic rejection of equality and tolerance, that makes this judgment so important.

In Afghanistan, Schoolgirl X wouldn't have had the luxury of taking any little complaint she might have to court.

She'd have been at home, uneducated and silenced. The Taliban shut girls' schools and decreed that no female should venture outdoors unless accompanied by a male relative.

Girls who didn't do as they were told paid a terrible price. Any woman seen without the niqab was executed.

It seems ironic, then, that this child is complaining that her human rights have been infringed by the school that sent her home to be educated by a private tutor because she wouldn't wear its uniform.

As someone who has taught hundreds of 12-year-old girls in my career, I would say that children - all children - want to be like each other.

No 12-year-old born and brought up in England, as this girl has been, would willingly go off to school looking like her grandmother.

And from a teacher's perspective, I can't think of anything more ridiculous than being confronted by a group of children wearing veils. Frankly, teaching is hard enough these days without the added disadvantage of wondering who precisely it is that you are teaching.

The effects on discipline in the classroom would be disastrous if half the children hid behind the veil, while the other half insisted upon their human right to wear Rasta hats or Druid costumes. Anne, a teacher in Hull with 30 years' experience, has found that even the hijab, a scarf worn to cover the hair, makes identification of girls difficult.

"From the back, you can't tell who a student is. They can be up to no good and when they run off you've no idea who they are," she says.

"I don't believe there's any need for girls to wear the hijab at school. It's problematic from a health and safety perspective as well, when they're working with machinery or science equipment, for example."

The school uniform exists for a good reason. It stops children bullying one another for wearing the 'wrong' clothes and it instils discipline. If children turn up at school dressed however they wish, they soon start to behave exactly as they wish as well.

Letting Schoolgirl X wear the niqab at school would set a dangerous precedent.

If, as I am convinced is the case, she was being used by adults to push at the boundaries of what is acceptable in the British education system, then how long before other Muslim girls who have no wish to wear the niqab find themselves being pressured by fathers, brothers and uncles into doing so?

Most Muslim women in this country don't wear the veil at all. Some choose to wear the hijab, which the Muslim Council of Britain says is 'quite sufficient' to meet Islamic requirements.

Lord Ahmed, Labour's leading Muslim peer, recently said that the niqab is now a mark of "separation, segregation and defiance against mainstream British culture".

The issue of the veil and Muslim girls has been sorted out once and for all in France. Unhampered by any concerns about possibly offending this or that group, the French government passed a law banning the wearing of any religious insignia at all.

And that was an end to it. No veils, niqabs, hijabs, turbans, crucifixes or dog collars. French youngsters go to school simply looking like children.

Perhaps it's time we passed a similar law in this country rather than simply letting individual schools decide the dress code.

Otherwise, religious fundamentalists will be back, pushing ever harder against the barriers of tolerance, common sense and equality that we have fought so hard to preserve in this country.

There has to be a balance between the benefits and cost of reducing a risk - - and although many say that there is little "benefit" to allowing the full religious garb, I have to say that some weight should be given to freedom.

- J

Originally Posted by Jehanne

I don't see how a ban on clothing would help prevent an attack on a school.

I can see how it would start an attack on a school though...

Please dont do me for rent-a-modding here, but isnt this thread about selective banning of the Niqab? There is no debate in the UK, the subject area of the debate (id assume the same of other countries though), about whether to ban the Hijab. To do that you would have to also ban hats, as they also cover the head, or simply declare that you were doing it based on religion, which would be incredibly discriminatory and intolerant. If your country doesnt like muslims, then why dont they come out and say it? (not directed at the Netherlands here, just in general).

Originally Posted by HylianShroom

To do that you would have to also ban hats, as they also cover the head, or simply declare that you were doing it based on religion, which would be incredibly discriminatory and intolerant.

No. Hats do cover the head, but that isn't the issue here. The Niqab covers the face, which can pose a potential security threat. It is easy to see one's face in a hat, and distinguish between an adult and child (referring to the school situation). When wearing a Niqab, one can easily hide their face (and their identity).

Originally Posted by dann

No. Hats do cover the head, but that isn't the issue here. The Niqab covers the face, which can pose a potential security threat. It is easy to see one's face in a hat, and distinguish between an adult and child (referring to the school situation). When wearing a Niqab, one can easily hide their face (and their identity).

Exactly. So, my question is how does the security risk from a Niqab compare to other risks in the UK? (I like quantitative analysis, but I suppose that we'll have to settle for discussion and conjecture.)

Does it matter? If something is a threat to a country, that threat should be elimanated. As I understand from a previous post, the Niqab is not necessary for Muslim women in the UK. If it's not necessary, then why wear it? Because they want to? Because they have the right to? If the Niqab is a threat to the country that they live in (the UK), they need to make scarifies to ensure that country's safety. To do anything less would be selfish. They are choosing to live there, after all.

But to honestly answer your question, Jehanne, I don't know. I can understand why the UK wants to tighten security, given the subway/bus bombs that went off in London almost two years ago in July (arrests were recently made).