Scrutiny is something that has become an everyday occurrence in the lives of a Muslim in western countries. Beliefs and Ethics aside some Muslims face negativity for their image and appearance. A Muslim male would be looked at suspiciously for having a long beard, he is legally allowed to be escorted of an airplane if he ‘looks suspicious,’ in other words if he has a long beard a this makes him a ‘security threat.’
This notion of stereotype has now become common practice in western countries and many believe that there is nothing wrong in escorting a man of a plane for his appearance or beliefs, or even searching him whilst he is walking down the streets.
Is this all done to create fear in the hearts of the average person? Or is this done to always make Muslims and Islam in general a bad religion? The politically correct term for this is Islamophobia.
After France banned women from wearing the Burqa in July 2010 many European nations have also considered banning the burqa. It was Spanish Justice Minister Francisco Caamano who after the French ruling against burqas said: ‘burqas are hardly compatible with human dignity,’ significantly this led Spain to heavily consider to bans burqas too and parliament debates on this issue are ongoing.
Thus, before France voted in the ban it was Belgium who in April 2010 banned burqas and the decision was unanimous as only 2 Member of Parliament voted against it. One of the members was Minister Bruno Tybens who said: ‘This law disturbs me. I believe in freedom of expression and I don’t think it should be restricted unless it is in a very exceptional circumstance.’
Barcelona also took action in June 2010 and banned burqas from government building and in there official statement said that burqas ‘hinder personal identification.’ Even though city officials in Spain do not have the power to prohibit burqas in public places, several small towns in the country which has 47 million Muslims have the same rules as Barcelona and see burqas as a threat to security.
Belgium set a benchmark for other countries across Europe and created shockwaves with the decision, the talk of threat, security risk and hiding identity has brought up many clauses in many international governments. The perfect example for this is Italy as it took Italian police only a week after the ban on burqas in Belgium to fine a woman $650, her crime – she was wearing a burqa. Italy has no specific law that prohibits the burqa but the woman was penalized for breaking a law that prohibits people from covering there face in public, the law was created in 1975.
On the difficulty of identifying someone on wearing a burqa Minister Tuybens said, ‘there is no link at all between crime and wearing the burqa or niqab.’
Islamophobia is spreading very fast not by the civilians but top officials in governments.
© Islam Times
