The Burqa Affair across Europe

Abstract

This edited collection provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal contexts within which the “burqa affair” is located across Europe. It was published following the December 2012 “Secularism and Religious Diversity in Europe: Opportunities and Perspectives” conference organized under the auspices of the RELIGARE project (Religious Diversity and Secular Models in Europe). Its aims are ambitious and commendable: to analyze the socio-legal situation of face-veil wearers in eight Western European countries where regulations range from outright bans (disguised under the tagline of banning full or partial face coverings to avoid reasonable allegations of religious discrimination directed at the already besieged European Muslim populations) to the simultaneous lack of general prohibitions but specific rulings against full-face veils. Despite the baffling personal interpolations made by some contributors to express their personal dislike of this practice (e.g., p. 5), they nevertheless recommend in their collective conclusion that legislators should not introduce general prohibitions into the common space (i.e., “the physical territory that people must necessarily enter to meet their basic needs,” p. 53), for doing so would unjustly criminalize those who exercise their personal rights, be they religious or human. However, they do allow for restrictions based on a caseby- case approach. The contributions are significant in that they display the frequent tension that exists between the local anti-burqa movements’ introduction and enactment of local and regional anti-face-veil legislation and the various national legal systems, European law, and human rights frameworks. Many of the cases presented illuminate the issues under discussion in national contexts. For example, Lisbet Christofersson’s “A Quest for Open Helmets: On the Danish Burqa Affair” and Jorn Thielmann and Kathrin Vorholzer’s “Burqa in ...