Amel Marmouri, 26, was stopped by carabinieri officers in a spot check outside a post office in Novara in northern Italy and given a 500 euro (£431) fine, payable within 90 days. She at first declined to lift her veil to be identified because the officers were male, but agreed when a municipal police patrol which included a woman officer was summoned.
The fine was imposed under a city ordinance introduced in January in Novara banning any clothing which “prevents the immediate identification of the wearer inside public buildings, schools and hospitals”. It marked the first time the regulation had been enforced.
Massimo Giordano, the Mayor of Novara, said the regulation was based on a 1975 national anti terrorist law making it illegal for men or women to be in public place with their faces covered. Similar local regulations have been passed at Treviso in the Veneto, Fermignano in the Marche and Montegrotto Terme near Padua.
Ben Salah Braim, 36, the woman's husband and a building worker, said he would respect the regulation, but would have to confine his wife at home since the Koran forbade other men to see her face.
“Amel may not be looked at by other men,” he said. “Our religion is explicit on this,” he said. “If this is the law in Italy, what can I do? I don't know how I am going to find the money to pay the 500 Euro fine.”
11 comments:
I have to take off my bike helmet before I can enter a bank so I can be identified, so should she
The bicycle helmet is far from a fair comparison. And she wasn't in a bank; she was outside.
Laws like this one have the opposite of the desired effects. The do not help women to be freer or more integrated, because the women they target, like the one in the story, will be forced further into isolation.
People should be free to dress (or not) as they wish.
I agree that people should be allowed to dress as they wish, but if your choices stop you from doing things then that is your choice.
If she doesn't want to show her face then she is breaking the law, so pay the fine or move. The same for cycling, if you choose not to wear a helmet then you are breaking the law and need to pay the fine or move to someplace that allows you to cycle without a helmet.
You know, you can always just agree to abide by the laws, or fight to change them if you think they are unfair.
Religion is not a valid reason to break laws. It is a personal choice and you must live with the consequences.
i dont know if its personal choice if the penalty is social exclusion or worse.
“Our religion is explicit on this,” he said. “If this is the law in Italy, what can I do?”
Oh, I don't know. Grow a brain and stop oppressing your wife based on an antiquated religion, perhaps?
<p><span><span>“Laws like this one have the opposite of the desired effects. The do not help women to be freer or more integrated, because the women they target, like the one in the story, will be forced further into isolation. </span></span>
</p><p><span><span> </span></span>
</p><p><span>People should be free to dress (or not) as they wish.”</span>
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</p><p><span>Whit all due respect, this is pure rubbish. </span>
</p><p><span>More:
Mr. Ben Salah Braim, 36 (!) should be arrested for sequestering is wife. I do believe there are Italian laws that forbid him of doing what he is challenging saying.</span>
</p><p><span>In Rome he should learn how to be a roman. I’m really tired up wiht the lack of respect of the europeans for his own culture and values and contemporization with this bastards.
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<span>I should add that the husband in this story disgusts me, saying he will have to "sequester" his wife, as though he is her owner. The kind of law he should learn to obey is the law that says all people are equal in the eyes of the law, and a husband cannot "force" his wife to cover up or stay home. I agree that he should be arrested for doing so!
On the other hand, some women choose to cover their faces in public, sometimes against their husband's wishes. Such women are being asked to choose between disobeying the law (by going out with faces covered), disobeying their religious beliefs (uncovering in public), and isolating themselves.
And it's one thing to move to another country and then expect them to change their laws for you, quite another to move there, become a citizen, and then have the laws changed to forbid what you have been doing all your life.
And I don't see how someone who chooses to cover her face in public, for personal religious reasons, is disrespecting me or my culture. If she starts telling me what to do with my face, that's disrespect.</span>
<p><span><span><span>A culture is also a set of unwritten “laws” that are (or should be, when we cherish it) tacitly accepted by all its members. Among our culture - and there is a European culture, in spite of some voices and trivial differences among European nations - this “laws” prescribe that I talk and interact not only with my voice but with my eyes, my leaps and all my face. I believe there isn’t a single European who wouldn’t feel uncomfortable if condemned to interact with someone wearing a plastic bag with two halls in his head, with someone who can see you but that you can’t see (usually we associate this images with bank robbers). Even an alien would feel it.<span> </span>It seems to me that everybody understands this simple thing and it is certainly because of its evidence that we didn’t have a written law about that, a tool to reiterate “something” that everybody knew and accepted, after all. <span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span>
</p><p><span><span><span>When Europeans go abroad, most of them try to respect different cultures knowing that we don’t have to accept or consider any form of “supremacy” of these cultures, and, at least, everybody knows that it is the proper way of behaving.</span></span></span>
</p><p><span><span><span>So, it is absolutely right to expect some reciprocity of manners. And if the way we are is unbearable to someone, this someone should leave to a place where their costumes are some sort of unwritten “law”.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span>“I don't see how someone who chooses to cover her face in public, for personal religious reasons, is disrespecting me or my culture. If she starts telling me what to do with my face, that's disrespect.”</span></span>
</p><p><span><span> </span></span>
</p><p><span><span><span>Please, let me try to explain why in my view it is disrespectful and even offensive.</span></span></span>
</p><p><span><span><span>The way we dress never is exclusively a “personal” matter; it is also a code that human beings learn very soon how to master and, as a “language”, it is also used to interact with others more or less consciously. <span> </span></span></span></span>
</p><p><span><span><span>Now, the burqa, unlike you seem to believe, is not a religious symbol in its origins; it is a symbol of a predatory male culture and it means something that is not very far from: “if I don’t hide myself from your eyes you will probably rape me”. </span></span></span>
</p><p><span><span><span>And that’s why I find it very offensive in a European context.</span></span></span></p>
He says that his religion dictates that women should wear the burqa.
Bullox- I've heared literally countless other Muslims including enough Imams and Muslim Shariaa experts say that such is not true.
If this man does not want to conform to a culture where all people including females walk in public with faces visible, he should move to a place where his ideas are accepted. If he's not prepared to bare the consequences of not earning money elsewehere so that he has to stay where he lives now, he has to conform.
I myself very strongly believe that in our Western -European- culture it is common practice to see eachother's faces and eyes- That is a key part of our social communication.
I sometimes feel very much so offended if I have to talk with someone who keeps his or her face covered from sight (helmet closed, shawl kept over face, sunglasses firmly on), because it denies me to see whom I talk to and what he or she says- apart from the audible message. I ask from people if they would want to remove their sunglasses if we have conversation. I feel there is a lack of openness, that the person doesn't care about being polite and being social, that the person does not recognise the other person if he or she does not uncover his or her face during conversation.
I've never ever had to fight or argue over uncovering faces during conversation, it always was solved the friendly way by the other uncovering his or her face.
I don't know; there are a few women in my neighbourhood who wear a niqab (also covers the face, but much less restrictive than a burqa). I've spoken to them and exchanged smiles with them. It was never difficult; if you can see someone's eyes clearly, it's not hard to read their facial expression.
And there's no law against large, mirrored sunglasses, which surely affect the ability of people to interact or to be identified, is there? Would you support such a ban?
I agree that face covering is not a part of "mainstream" Islam, and that it may have cultural origins that are more sinister, but nevertheless, there are women who choose to cover their faces, and to them their reasons are religious.
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