Egypt Considering Ban on Burqa As Part of Security Crackdown: Reports

Egypt is considering a ban on the Islamic full-face covering known as the burqa as part of a crackdown on terrorism, according to reports.

The Muslim-majority nation has faced a series of recent attacks by Islamic terrorists, including the shooting of six Coptic Christians last week by ISIS.

The ban, proposed as a draft bill in the Egyptian parliament, would prohibit the full face veil in public spaces, including schools and hospitals, reported MediaOnline.

The draft bill, submitted by lawmaker Ghada Ajami, calls for a fine of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($56) for breaching the ban.

Islamic scholars have long debated whether women are obligated to cover their faces, and the majority of Muslims reject the wearing of the full-veil head-gear that originates in the ultra-conservative Wahhabi traditions.

The Taliban made the wearing of the burqa compulsory after they took control of Afghanistan in 1996.

Egypt mulled banning the head-gear back in 2016.

A burqa-clad Egyptian woman walks past soldiers as she leaves a polling station in Cairo on Jan. 29, 2012. Khaled Desouka/AFP/Getty Images

Used to Hide Identity

Egyptian political analyst Ahmad Sharbini told MediaOnline, “Egypt is going through a period of instability because of radical Islamic groups operating within the country.”

The burqa creates a security problem as “many male and female terrorists use it to hide their identities or sneak into places.”

“If passed, this legislation would not infringe [on] freedoms or go against religions. Public safety and national security are more important than anything.”

The majority of terrorist attacks occur in the area of Northern Sinai, with most attacks aimed at government, security forces, and Coptic Christians. Attacks occur almost daily, most carried out by a local branch of ISIS.

Last November, 311 people were killed in a bomb and gun attack on a Sufi mosque in northern Sinai.

Egyptian authorities have been criticized by human rights organisations for systematic use of torture and enforced disappearances to silence political dissent.

In Europe, several countries have enacted bans on the burqa and similar face veils in the last decade, including Austria, Denmark, France, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Incompatible with Human Relations

The bans have not been enacted simply for security reasons, however, attracting controversy and criticism from some human rights organizations.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that a ban on full-face coverings in Belgium did not violate anti-discrimination laws, the right to a private and family life, or freedom of thought or religion.

The court said the Belgian state had a right to make its own judgment on full-face veils as being “incompatible” with “social communication and more generally the establishment of human relations, which were indispensable for life in society.”

Earlier this year, Denmark became the latest country to ban full-face coverings, with violations subject to fines.

British politician and would-be prime minister Boris Johnson courted controversy when he criticized Denmark’s ban as running counter to the spirit of libertarianism, but reserved the right to mock the burqa saying people wearing them looked like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers.”

He refused to apologize after being labelled “Islamophobic.”

At the time, Maajid Nawaz, himself a reformed Islamic extremist, described the burqa as a “uniform of medieval patriarchal tyranny” that “victim-blames women for their beauty.”

“I’m not advocating banning this monstrosity, but I refuse to defend it,” he wrote on Twitter. “It deserves to be ridiculed.”