France has recently passed a ban on the burqa, and the lower house of the Belgian legislature has passed a similar law. The latest reports also indicate that France will prosecute men who force women to wear the burqa.Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report on these developments with material taken from several sources. First, a translation from Elsevier:
A year in prison for men who force women into a burqa
by Jeroen Langelaar
France is going to take very hard line against men who force women to wear the niqab or the burqa. A man who puts his wife under such pressure will be given one year’s imprisonment or a fine of €15,000 [US $20,000]. This is what the French newspaper Le Figaro reports this Friday.
The newspaper has managed to obtain the bill that will be submitted by the French Government in July.
Previously the French Minister for Immigration, Eric Besson, revoked the French citizenship of a man because he forced his spouse to wear a burqa.
According to the new law, a woman who wears such a garment will receive a fine of €150 [US $200]. “No one should wear clothes in public which aim to cover the face,” is what the bill states.
However, a fine is not the only consequence for women who wear a niqab or burqa. They also may be forced to take a course in which they are taught why it is desired in France that the face be fully visible.
VH summarizes the new Belgian law:
- - - - - - - - -
Belgium yesterday approved a burqa ban [the law proposal mentions a fine of €15 to €25 and a prison sentence of one to seven days — festivities such as Carnival constitute an exception to the rule]. But the legislation is likely to be introduced only after the upcoming elections.
The Belgian Senate has indicated it needs more time to form an appraisal judgment. Senators doubt, among other things, whether the ban can stand up to a test by the European Union.
He adds a quote from Le Figaro:
Article 1: “No one may in public wear an outfit designed to hide the face.” The failure to comply with the prohibition in Article 1 shall be punished with a fine of the second class, of €150.” As a sentencing option or in addition, “a citizenship course.”
Article 2: The text also creates a new crime of “incitement to hide the face due to the sex of the person.” The act of coercing the concealment of the face, with “violence, threats, abuse of power or authority, shall be punished with one year in prison and a fine of €15,000.” This new crime is part of Chapter 5 of the Penal Code which deals with violations of the dignity of the person.
6 comments:
Take a class to be taught why it is desired in France that the face is fully visible?
How insulting!
The French law : all mouth and no trousers.
On one hand, very harsch penalites are announced for men who force women to wear a burqa. But such an incitement is a) unprovable, b) often does not exist : the woman wears the burqa willingly. Does anyone believe that Muslim husbands write letters stating : "I hereby command you, my wife n°X, to wear the burqa" ?
On the other hand, the authorities have already declared that they will not enforce the law against women, at least in the beginning (the duration of that "beginning" being anybody's guess).
There will be no arrests, and the penalty mandated by the law will not be applied. Instead, "educational measures" will be used in order to "explain" those women why the burqa is wrong.
But this is ridiculous. There's no explaining to do. The offending women are Islamic militants who know very well what they are doing and why. Suggesting that they might somehow change their behaviour because some badly-paid official will tell them that "republican values" are better than Islam is an insult to the intelligence of the ethnic French. Would you try to "explain" a Nazi warrior that invading your country is wrong ?
Passing this law is worse than doing nothing. Muslims have now the proof that they are free to break French law as long as it contradicts sharia.
This is Sarkozy's method : pounding on the table, passing ostensibly bold reforms -- and neutering them in the small print which nobody reads. It's easy to win "negociations" with various lobbies in this way.
The far-right Front national had an unexepctedly good outcome at the last regional elections. This law is only posturing by Nicolas Sarkozy in order to woo again those voters, whom he had managed to switch to his side when he was elected at the presidency.
It's very unlikely they will be fooled twice. In any case, this is the proof that it's worth voting for the so-called "fascist" parties. It's the only thing that may, just may, attract politicians' attention.
Let me make a comparison.
French law states than a man is a pimp when he receives money from a prostitute. Whether she hands it to him voluntarily is irrelevant. Whether she commits to prostitution voluntarily is irrelevant.
This is a very wise law. It is often impossible to prove the coercion of women into prostitution. Furthermore, things are not always clear-cut : there is often an element of wilful behaviour from the prostitute herself. Willingness and coercion can coexist. Untangling the two is impossible.
If the French authorities were serious about banning the burqa, they would :
1. Make it a crime to be the husband of a burqa-wearing woman. No need to prove coercion.
Of course, this would not solve everything, because many of those "marriages" are unofficial anyway, since they only happen before an imam (and he won't rush forth to provide the proof).
But some of those wives are officially married. The one which setup the French police recently by driving with a niqab certainly was. Make it impossible for them to marry officially, and to get the benefits this entails.
2. Cut all social benefits for burqa-wearing women. No child allowances, no "single-parent" allowances, no city council flats, no unemployments benefits. One could go even further : no free public education for their children, no free health services.
If the burqa is so at odds with "French values" (and it is), why on earth should France provide such services for free to those who choose to spit in her face ?
This would be easy to do. It would solve instantly the real public order problem that everybody has in mind : how do you arrest a burqa-clad woman in the street, without attracting violent retaliation from the neighbourhood, which would probably be heavily Muslim-populated ?
Or course, such measures would take political gonads. They would imply the willingness to "offend" and "stigmatise" Muslims.
Robert, the question is why French people should fund their ethnic displacement to begin with, bruka clad or not. I'll also give you a tip from Romanian law - make it illegal(felony) to marry in front of a priest, without marrying in front of the state. Polygamy solved. Doing so would lead to the arrest of all participating parties and shutting down the mosques that do it.
About arrests, it's easy. Don't you have riot police? In gypsy majority places, I saw ticket check ups for mass transit done with the presence of the jandarmery since they beat up the ticket checkers otherwise.
"Make it illegal(felony) to marry in front of a priest, without marrying in front of the state."
It's already illegal. The law is not enforced.
"About arrests, it's easy."
Hahaha. Only when typing from the safety of your room.
"Don't you have riot police? In gypsy majority places, I saw ticket check ups for mass transit done with the presence of the jandarmery since they beat up the ticket checkers otherwise."
Consider the places where burqas usually are as foreign-occupied territories. When the police tries to do something there, it's not unusual for hundreds of thugs to come instantly out of the woodwork and threaten them, pelt them with stones, or worse.
They are afraid of nothing. They have been known to punch and kick to the ground armed policemen. Whole police stations have been attacked.
French police are (secretly) forbidden to use deadly force in such situations, whereas nothing less will do. Of course, if they did shoot back, they'd better do that in large groups. Two cops have a limited quantity of ammunition. They are surrounded by thousands of potentially hostile people, who command rooftoops and have stacked up there blocks of concrete and old washing machines to be used as weapons.
During one of the last riot episodes next to Paris, large groups of riot police were deliberately shot at. They did not shoot back. One woman policeman prevented a male collegue from using his gun, as was congratulated for her act.
If the authorities did permit fire, they should be ready to bear responsibility for the large-scale riots that would certainly ensure.
A few weeks ago, one million euros were seized by the police in a city project, during a drugs-related raid. In retaliation, buses were pelted with stones and set on fire. The government decided to give a police escort to buses. So now, whenever you have a bus, you have a police car in front of it opening the way. But the police cars get pelted with stones as well.
Now I suppose we should ask the United nations to send troops, in order to protect the police who is protecting the buses.
That's how modern-day jihad works. The problem is very simple : we're at war, and nobody wants to aknowledge that, because the consequences would be too unpleasant to contemplate. But you cannot fight a war with methods devised for times of peace.
Robert, I know how these things happen. I mean, my generation got born in a revolution and in a civil war and we grew up drawing what we saw on TV - the jandarmery crushing riots and coup attempts. Five to ten jandarmery trucks with water cannons, tear gas, full of riot cops in full combat gear with batons and shields can handle it. If things turn into a huge riot, then you can declare martial law and bring the army out of the barracks with war time ammo. We had this in 1999, if I recall right, tanks guarding highways and the like. Actually, the fact that the police can't enforce French law in those areas might lead to the desired outcome - people realizing that immigrants act like occupying forces(and rightfully so, only idiots think that you can let religiously, ethnically and so on opposite people in huge numbers in your country and not act in this way
Still, for example, in my country we had a riot that involved over 10,000 people and the government was able to crush it. But you must be willing to always make the next step and up the ante - for example, if they take cops prisoners or start killing people, declare martial law.
Oh, and I can't believe that there's an even more emasculated police than mine related to shooting people or at cars. There was this case of a woman almost running over two cops and they didn't do squat. But here if they'd get shot at, they'd return fire, at least. The biggest problem of doing this would be the PR campaign of the government to keep public opinion on it's side, not the real fighting.
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