Fines imposed on women for wearing the full-face-covering niqab veil, imposed for the first time by a court in France on Thursday, are a “travesty of justice,” Amnesty International said.
Police have issued several on-the-spot fines since the ban came into force in April, but the hearing saw the first two court-issued fines and the Muslim women vowed to appeal their case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.
“This is a travesty of justice and a day of shame for France. These women are being punished for wearing what they want,” Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia John Dalhuisen said in a statement.
“Instead of protecting women’s rights, this ban violates their freedom of expression and religion,” he added.
The court in the northern cheese-making town of Meaux ordered Hind Ahmas, 32, to pay a 120 euro (US$160) fine, while Najate Nait Ali, 36, was fined 80 euros. It did not order them to take a citizenship course, as the prosecutor had wanted.
The women were arrested when they brought a birthday cake for local mayor and lawmaker Jean-Francois Cope, who is head of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party that pushed through Europe’s first anti-burqa law.
France is not the only country to try to ban the Muslim full-face veil — Belgium and some Italian cities have similar laws, while other countries are planning to follow suit — so a European ruling could have broad effect.
French officials estimate that only around 2,000 women, out of a total Muslim population estimated at between 4 million and 6 million, wear the full-face veils traditionally worn in parts of the Arab world and South Asia.
Many Muslims and rights activists say the right-wing president is targeting one of France’s most vulnerable groups to signal to anti-immigration voters that he shares their fear that Islam is a threat to French culture.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia