Ban the Burqa Reaction

Ban the Burqa Reaction

Landon Harper
“Ban the Burqa” Reaction
In Claire Berlinski’s article, “Ban the Burqa”, she conveys her opinion on the subject of banning Burqas. While banning burqas is, in her words, “a terrible assault on the ideal of religious liberty,” she also states that banning them is a necessary step for governments to take. Berlinski realizes that some women do in fact wear burqas due to their own personal convictions. She realizes as well that many do so to avoid persecution, even to the point of physical assault. Herein lies the reason Claire Berlinski believes burqas should be banned. She has nothing against the burqa itself, only the discrimination that comes with not wearing it.
At the beginning of her article, Berlinski draws from her own experience to express her sympathy towards the women in these Muslim communities. She had encountered in her own life a neighborhood in Balat that viewed unveiled women as whores. She was also in a home of her friend who asked her dress more modestly while she was still in his apartment. The discrimination was so bad there he didn’t want to risk his neighbors reporting he was with a prostitute. These incidents opened her eyes to the discrimination women who choose to live without wearing a burqa suffer everyday. According to French statistics, in certain neighborhoods, instances of rape have risen fifteen to twenty percent each year since nineteen ninety-nine. In La Cournevue, seventy-seven percent of veiled women only wear their veils to avoid being physically assaulted, whether it is being beaten or even raped. The association of Islam and crime against women has risen significantly. For example, the police in Oslo, Norway reported that compared to two thousand eight there were twice as many assault rapes in two thousand nine. In all reported cases from two thousand seven to two thousand nine, all offenders were non-Western immigrants. Berlinski then states that if this “dynamic, totalitarian ideology” is not stopped it...

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