Antwerpen has recently banned the burqa. How do you all feel towards a ban of this way of clothing?
For mor info on burqa related laws:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_r5nyms2Qg&feature=related

I think it's such a difficult subject. For me wearing a burqa would feel repressive, but that's the Western bias and it's hard to say that about everyone. I can imagine that for practical reasons in some places a burqa cannot be worn, schools (exams), banks (recognition) etc. However, I'm afraid that banning the burqa will not cause fewer women to wear this, but fewer women with a burqa to walk on the streets and more staying all days at home.

What's your opinion Sjoerdje?

Well, I can understand that some professions and locations require vision on your face. Therefore I can understand a partial ban of the burqa. However, I think that wearing a burka can be your own decision and if you think that that is necessary to practise your faith I think that the right to make that choice should not be violated.

Furthermore, I think that you are right in your point that this won't help if your goal would be to put a hold to the suppression of women. If the woman in case is suppressed, she simply wouldn't be allowed to go out of the house.

I actually don't think that there would be women who would stop wearing a burqa due to this legislation.

Therefore, if the goal of the legislation is to achieve that less women would wear burqa's I think that the legislation is useless.
So maybe the goal should be general safety or something like that but I don't think that burqa's cause lots of harm to the safety.

So a general ban on the burqa sounds quit harsh to me and I don't think that it is necessary

I always reply when the question is posed to someone else! This is interesting. I don't know how I feel about it. As I said, my ex-girlfriend is from Iran, and when she would go back, she would forced to wear a headscarf but most of the women in her family chose to wear the burqa. She had told me though that women that were seen as exposing too much skin would sometimes be stoned to death.

Its such a foreign concept to me, but I think well, just like how the government or religious officials make some women wear the burqa because they think its the right thing to do, we shouldn't be telling the same women not to wear it because we think its the right thing to do. Isn't doing that, banning the burqa, the same as banning women from exposing their skin? I think the focus should not be about restrictions - one way or the other, and should be focused on getting women to have the choice to choose whether they want to wear it or not. Isn't that the human right? Freedom of choice and expression? This would be a longer and tougher struggle though.