Criminalising oppression or reinforcing oppression? The implications of veil ban laws for Muslim women in the West

In a post-9/11 climate, certain European countries have applied restrictive measures and bans on the practice of Islam in the public sphere. Such bans involve the hijab (headscarf) and the niqab (face veil), as well as minarets.1 In 2004, the French government passed a law that banned the wearing of ‘ostentatious’ religious symbols in public schools.2 The law on ‘secularity and conspicuous religious symbols’ was an amendment to the French Code of Education that expanded principles founded in the then existing French law, especially the constitutional requirement of laïcité: the separation of religion and state. Although prohibited items included a large cross, a Sikh turban and a yarmulke (a head-covering worn by Jewish men and boys), the main effect was to ban the headscarf on the basis that this law predominately applied to Muslim girls. In a post-9/11 context, the Muslim headscarf has greater symbolic resonance than other ‘ostentatious’ markers of religious identity, and correspondingly political, media and public debates have been chiefly concerned with the Muslim headscarf. In April 2011, France became the first country in Europe to introduce a law banning the wearing of the face veil in public places including public buildings, educational institutions, hospitals and on public transport.3