No, we never fought just I owed your backside but hey ho
Let's get this thread back on track.
There's been incidents recently were Men have abused the Niqab and some women have also endangering other people's lives.
The police don't know how to approach the Muslim Women here (and this isn't America where the police is pretty violent -it causes distrust amongst communities). A terror incident took place but was prevented before any damage could have been done and it was done using the Niqab attire.
All the police have requested is yes legally they won't ask you to remove it but due to the CURRENT climate - morally for the safety and comfort and to make their job easier and prevent any suspicious/racial profiling can they just remove it.
I Honestly don't think there's anything wrong in this.
The discussion wasn't if it was Compulsory or not BUT if it's acceptable in this moment in time for them to do so.
Which I personally think it is. As Muslims living in the West, one should not draw further attention and guess what? Though you admit that the Niqab is a purpose of 'preventing attention' it works the opposite over here. Which therefore defeats it's whole purpose.
No, they shouldn't remove their Niqab, and here is why.
1. The police, of all people, should go out of their way to ensure women get their constitutional right to dress as they choose.
2. The society at large vehemently supports this right for women in all other contexts. So, if a rapist claims 'the woman asked for it', it would be considered victim blaming. The matter is described rather sarcastically here:
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-an...ture-was-rolled-into-one-20151019-gkd2tx.html
So, asking Muslim women to remove their Niqab shows they are being de-humanized. It is a hypocritical, two faced policy, where 'some are more equal than others'.
Here's my question. The simple act of make up also hides identity. Worse still, it allows people to assume somebody else's identity. If security is of such importance, then make up should be banned.
But I guess part of the problem comes from the partial implementation of the purdah. If properly implemented, purdah means women stay inside their houses, except for some great need due to which they need to leave the house. Since Western society has made it compulsory for women to get out of the house to attend school as an example, if a 17 year old girl wants to observe purdah, it becomes an issue. So Western society should live up to its ideals and facilitate her in making this choice.
Here is a brain dead simple solution to security problems: finger prints. Purdah observing women can be asked to show their hands, and a machine can read her print and lookup the details in a database. NADRA implemented such a system for computer NICs. We can help them if they can't do it.