The German lower house of parliament (Bundestag) on Thursday approved a partial ban on the full-face burqa. The ban was part of a package of legislation passed by the Bundestag in order to assuage growing fears of Islamic terrorism in the country.
Since July of 2016, 14 people have died at the hands of terrorists in Germany. In December, a Muslim terrorist used a van to mow down 12 souls attending Christmas market in the nation’s capitol.
The legislation addresses the full burqa and the niqab, which cover the wearer’s face, and applies only to certain public servants in the performance of their official duties. Women wearing burqas or niqabs in the Federal Republic would still be required to reveal their faces when requested to do so for indentification purposes.
Other forms of female Muslim dress in which the face is revealed, such as the hijab and the chador, would still be permitted. For over fifty years very few Muslim women in Germany have worn the burqa, since most of them have hailed from Turkey. Most Turkish women wear headscarves, although not in public areas or office buildings. But they do not usually wear burqas or niqabs.
A February effort by German conservatives in the federal state of Bavaria to ban the full burqa was largely seen as a political move, chiefly the powerful right-leaning Christian Social Union (CSU). The hope then was to lure away voters drawn to the messaging of the uncompromising Alternative for Germany (AfD).
When the current bill was first proposed in March, some members of the German parliament suggested that the ban was “much ado about nothing,” mere political window dressing. As reported at the time by the Law Library of Congress,
Lars Castellucci, a member of the Social Democratic Party, and Ulla Jelpke from the Left Party both pointed out that the draft act seemed to regulate a non-existent problem. They stated that they had never encountered a civil servant who was wearing a burqa or a niqab and that only a small minority of women in general wears them in public.
For their part, when dealing with the continuing Islamafication of the Federal Republic of Germany, “conservative” German politicians continue to put party and politics above the safety and security of the German people. The partial full-burka ban is yet another instance of “conservative” German elite using their political power to control the masses.