French Urban Affairs Minister Ms. Fadela Amara
While supporting a court’s decision to deny French citizenship to a Moroccan women, Faiza M (who wears a burqa), France’s Urban Affairs minister Fadela Amara slammed the Muslim burqa dress style. The court ruled that the burqa wasn’t compatible with French values. 32 year old Faiza has lived in France since 2000 with her French national husband and 3 French-born children and says that she has never challenged French fundamentals. Amara says “The burqa is a prison, it’s a straitjacket” and that “It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that advocates inequality between the sexes and which is totally devoid of democracy.” She feels that the court’s ruling will “dissuade certain fanatics from imposing the burqa on their wives.”
You may think Ms. Amara is just anti-Muslim, when in fact she is a French-born Muslim with Algerian parents. So I guess in a way she is entitled to denounce parts of her own religion if she wants. My opinions after the link.
While I think Ms. Amara has complete rights to denounce parts of her own religion. But to impose her views on others in her religion? Not so much. A nation like France denying citizenship based on attire? Definitely not. I don’t know much about French law and will never claim that I do (unless I for some reason study it), but I feel like this really doesn’t promote great freedoms like France typically does. I feel like Faiza M should be granted citizenship seeing as she has been a law-abiding resident for some time now and the burqa really isn’t hurting anyone except maybe for herself. According to the BBC article, social services reports said she lived in “total submission to her male relatives”.
This is her prerogative and her religion, she should be able to practice whatever religion however she wants to as long as it is in a lawful fashion. If there is a law in France prohibiting burqas, then I guess she is out of bounds, but until that time she is being stripped of her rights as a human being.
