15 June 2010

Spain planning burqa ban

Spain's government plans to ban the use of the Islamic burqa in public places under a proposed new law on religious freedom, the justice minister said Tuesday.

"We believe that there are things like the burqa which are hard to reconcile with human dignity and which especially pose problems of identification in public places," Francisco Caamano told reporters. The burqa is a body-covering Islamic garment worn by women.

The new law "will have to include measures on these symbols which impede identification in public places" for reasons of "security", Caamano said. [AFP] Read more