Quote Originally Posted by Thorne View Post
A complicated issue, certainly. Should women be allowed to wear their veil in public? Absolutely. Whether it's a religious statement or a fashion statement, people have the right to wear, or not wear, whatever they please (within the limits of decency, I suppose.)

But what about security? Should merchants or banks be allowed to require women to show their faces, to protect themselves and their customers from potential harm? I think they should have that right. After all, if someone walks into your shop covered from head to toe in a burqa, you don't know if you're dealing with a customer or a crook.
I can’t remember if it was made law before the end of the last parliament or not, but I do believe we have a law in the UK outlawing them from certain places. IE: - airports for one and schools for another, and it was all down to security. I also think it was rushed through parliament because a Pakistani that murdered his girl friend or wife and escaped justice for the murder for a short while by dressing in a burqa and escaping to Pakistan he was eventually found and sent back.
Women in the UK dressed in burqa's however have not been victimised because no one is allowed in nearly all indoor shopping areas and malls wearing hoods, the whole of the head must be shown at all times and that includes white English. It also law in most public houses that people wearing caps with peaks are not allowed to be worn in certain public house chains. The burqa is not a religious item or a fashion statement, and no one not even the Muslims themselves knows where it originated from. All that has been said about it by religious theorists is pure speculation. I have no worries about women wearing them but I do believe that they are a great security threat to any nation including the Muslim states. This has been seen by the suicide bombers of Israel, Afghanistan and Iraq and not all of them were women.

Regards ian 2411