Belgium has banned the burkha. (source) One might think that this is an intrusion on civil liberties — and I suppose that one could credibly argue that it is. You ought to be able to wear a burkha if you want to.
On the other hand, I question how many women wear burkhas voluntarily. I bet that sub-group of burkha-wearers is somewhere around 12 worldwide.
When you are up against one of the abrahamic cults (christianity, judaism, islam) sometimes it takes radical moves to push for progress. In Turkey, back in the early 1900s, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk helped make the burkha a thing of the past by decreeing that all prostitutes must wear them, and simultaneously banning the headscarf for women. Accordingly, the burkha became the uniform of the whore, and law-abiding women didn’t wear them.
Of course, pushing against a cult is difficult, and to this day Turkish women disobey the law – preferring to do that over the immodesty of showing their hair in public.
I don’t really see a whole lot of a problem with a woman voluntarily wearing a headscarf. But, the burkha is just a disgusting display of misogyny. On the other hand, if she’s a nutbag that wants to wear one, then what business is it of the state to intervene? Is it proper for the state to make the same judgment I make — that she can’t possibly be voluntarily wearing it, and thus ban burkhas to “liberate” women who might not be able to liberate themselves?
