The Burqa Debate Reaches Australia
At 1.5% of the population, Australia’s Muslim community is somewhat smaller than those of many European nations, such as France (10%), Netherlands (6%), Belgium (3.6%) and Britain (3%). It is also generally a younger and more ethnically diverse community, compared with France, Germany and Britain where North African Muslims, Turks and Pakistanis respectively are particularly prominent. Nevertheless, trends among European Muslim minorities usually also emerge among Australia’s Muslims, though somewhat later. So do debates that surround these Muslim minority communities of Europe. One debate that won’t go away in European countries concerns Muslim women who wear a face veil, in the form of the niqab (which reveals the eyes) or the body-length burqa (a full face covering). In April Belgium's lower house of parliament banned face-covering Islamic dress in public. The northern Spanish city of Lleida also recently barred women from wearing such veils inside municipal buildings. France is...