This Bill is being promoted by Philip Hollobone, the Tory MP for Kettering in Northamptonshire. The bill is quite clearly intended to outlaw the wearing of the “Burka” or Niqab although the Bill is posed in terms of a wider ban on “face-coverings”. He has been running with this campaign since before the general election.

Interestingly Kettering has a very small Muslim community with even fewer wearing the Burka/Niqab. His campaign (that was widely reported/debated in the local press over many weeks – with most of contributions rabidly Islamaphobic) the only two women who did wear the Burka/Niqab in Kettering have now left and Philip Hollobone is reported as saying that he is “pleased” with this result!

See:

http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/Burka-ban-put-to-Commons.6384156.jp

http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/MP-pleased-last-women-who.6485457.jp

http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/Majority-behind-MP39s-bid-to.6430841.jp

http://paulcrofts.blogspot.com/2010/03/muslim-women-speak-out.html

Although this Bill is unlikely to succeed in Parliament, it forms part of a wider UK/European attack on Muslims/Islam that is on-going, becoming more intense and feeds into more extreme positions adopted by the BNP and the English Defence League.

Paul

Dear Colleagues

There is a Bill currently going through Parliament titled “Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill” which states:

“Subject to the exemptions in subsection (3), a person wearing a garment or other object intended by the wearer as its primary purpose to obscure the face in a public place shall be guilty of an offence”

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmbills/020/11020.i-i.html#j001

Am I correct is assuming that this Bill will effectively ban the wearing of a niqab and other face veils in public??

Is anyone aware of why such a measure in now being taken?

Regards

Darren