This isn't about whether we think wearing burqas or niqabs is a good idea or not. The issue is whether a government should be able to impose its notion of national identity on its citizens

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has approved a law that "benefits" more or less 2,000 burqa-clad women, who were subjected to patriarchal oppression. Much to my surprise, the law is being rigidly enforced.

Sustainable cultural change can come only though free will and not compulsion. I am not for the burqa, but we have to defend the woman's right to wear what she chooses.

France has now officially outlawed the Islamic niqab or burqa in public. Where's the liberté in that?

By Anto Akkara Religion News Service/ENInews NAGPUR, India (RNS/ENInews) Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams deplored attempts by European gov...

The burqa ban is really less about preserving women's freedom and more about the underlying discomfort that many in France have over the growth of Islam and the increasing assertion of Muslim identity in the public sphere.

By Elizabeth Bryant Religion News Service PARIS (RNS) Belgium is poised to become Europe's first country to ban the face-covering Islamic veil, after...

It is easy to see how the "burqa ban" might be misused as a part of a broader effort to stigmatize a religious population, one that already perceives itself to be on the margins of society.