Denmark bans wearing the burqa in public

[Hortensis]

247. I basically agree. The only reason would be policing,

and I have hugely mixed views about requiring faces to be visible for the surveillance cameras that are being mounted by the millions every week.

As for burqas in and of themselves, though, I think it's very wrong for government to interfere with women's own choices, religious or secular, through mandated acculturation. No matter how many Muslim women in western nations tell the world it's by their own choice, some insist on disrespecting their choices and casting all as victims. Of course wearing the burqa is not always an individual woman's true preference.

But society's role should be to protect citizens from abuse and oppression, to keep all doors open to them as free people, and to render assistance securing their freedoms when appropriate. I just don't think women wearing burqas when they go out in public, because their own family and friends expect it, rises to a level of abuse that requires this severe government interference.

But then, as government oppression and suppression of ethnicity and religious beliefs go, this is at least fairly mild. And how else are those cameras to get a good view?