The burkini ban
Breaking news: France’s highest administrative court has ruled the burkini ban illegal.
The State Council upheld a challenge by human rights groups which argued that the ban in the Riviera resort of Villeneuve-sur-Loubet infringed personal freedoms in a ruling that is likely to set a legal precedent for 29 other towns that have banned the garment.
The ban “constituted a serious and manifestly illegal infringement of fundamental liberties, ” the State Council said in its judgement.
Patrice Spinosi, a lawyer for the Human Rights League, said the decision to “suspend” the ban would also apply to the other 29 French towns.
I’m sure you’re all well familiar with this incident in Nice:
There’s no denying it’s beyond bizarre to see four armed cops standing over a woman and forcing her to take some clothes off.
Sanity at last…
The whole debate about female Islamic dress… hijabs. niqabs, burkhas etc.. is always a win-win situation for islamist passive/aggression. If the attire is allowed, then the ‘gang colours’ of Islam will fly high. If the sharia-compliant clothing is suppressed then those tenors of the Kalifat pushing it can simply turn around and play the victim. They’ll claim they were denied a choice. The fact, though, that 100s of millions of Muslim women in Muslim countries haven’t a *choice* won’t be addressed by anyone.
Except of course that it’s not true that the fact that 100s of millions of Muslim women in Muslim countries haven’t a choice won’t be addressed by anyone. It will be and is addressed by quite a few people. Not enough, but also not zero.
The thing that saddens me most about this ban is that all it’s achieving is to keep Muslim women indoors and unable to experience life the way everyone else does. It seems to me that we should be encouraging burkinis if they are the only way many women get to go to the beach and to see how the less oppressed live their lives. Perhaps that’s one of the things that could fuel a revolution.
Besides, it’s perfectly sensible to cover up on the beach for several reasons. I work in software and therefore under normal circumstances only go out at night. On the two or three days a year I’m unwittingly dragged flinching into the sunlight, I wouldn’t appreciate also being told that I had to risk sunburn, skin cancer and people judging my pale, pale legs.
But I wouldn’t be told that because I’m male and, as I said, pale. So pale. You could read a newspaper through me.