VEILED DIFFERENCES

There's an obvious difference between this, French grapple with banning Muslim veils: Fear of fundamentalism sparks controversy (Elizabeth Bryant, June 7, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle)

Every morning for two years, Samira Makhlouf removed her Islamic-style head scarf before entering her public school in the southeastern French city of Lyon.

When she donned a modest black bandanna, she was sent home. Finally, in frustration, the Algerian-born student dropped out at age 16, finishing high school by correspondence.

"Removing my head scarf was like tearing something away," said Makhlouf, now a 22-year-old theology student at Lyon University. "I felt my rights were being abridged. There were students who wore all black and were part of a satanic sect, but nobody bothered them."

Since then, the controversy over veils, as the French call head scarves, has become more heated. Calls are growing to ban veils in public schools, and the issue is dividing many camps, from politicians to feminists, as well as France's estimated 5 million Muslims.

"The problem is not so much the growing number of veils but their significance," Francois Baroin, vice president of the ruling Union for the Parliamentary Majority, told Le Figaro magazine.

In France -- home to Europe's largest Muslim population -- the controversy reflects widespread fear of growing Islamic fundamentalism. It also pits France's fiercely secular credo against European Union human rights laws pertaining to freedom of religion.

A recent poll found that more than one-third of French people want to ban Muslim women from wearing head scarves anywhere in public, and 49 percent believe the scarves should be forbidden in schools. [...]

"The government must intervene," said Juliette Minces, a sociologist who has written a number of books on the veil and Islam. "Teachers have a hard time with these girls who come to school wearing the veil, who refuse to attend gym or biology courses, or won't read Voltaire because he was a nonbeliever."

and this, Fla. woman ordered to lift veil (NY Daily News, June 7, 2003)

A Florida judge ruled yesterday that a Muslim woman cannot obscure her face with a veil in her driver's license photo.

Ruling that Sultaana Freeman's religious freedom would not be infringed, Circuit Judge Janet Thorpe said the state "has a compelling interest in protecting the public from criminal activities and security threats," and that photo identification "is essential to promote that interest."

Freeman, 35, obtained a license in 2001 that showed only her eyes through a slit in her veil. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the state demanded she have a new photo showing her face uncovered. She refused, Florida revoked her license and she sued.

The American Civil Liberties Union took up her case. But Assistant Attorney General Jason Vail successfully argued that Islamic law permits women to expose their faces if it serves a public good, and that Freeman could be photographed with only women present.

The former is motivated by nothing more than religious animus, while the latter is an impartial requirement that the religious conform to some pretty basic public safety standard. The Florida case would be a more difficult case if it involved a mandatory identification photo, for something like a National I.D. card. But the fact that Ms Freeman could evade taking her veil off by just not getting a license and that the state is willing to accomodate at least some of her concerns really shifts the ball to her court.

In the French case though it's impossible to justify a regime of compulsory state education that then forbids people to engage in the requirements of their religious faith within the system. One can only imagine the horror with which a Voltaire would greet the idea that people should be forced to read his works. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 7, 2003 6:28 AM