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French Constitutional Council validates burqa ban

08 October 2010 03:00 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. French Constitutional Council validated Thursday the government’s law banning Muslin women to wear a full-body veil such as burqa or niqab to preserve security and guarantee human rights, APA reports quoting news.xinhuanet.com website.

"The legislator found that the practice of concealment of the face in public spaces ... may constitute a danger to public safety and ignore the minimum requirements of life in society," the state top legal authority said in a statement.

"The Constitutional Council ruled that the referred law is in conformity with the Constitution," it added.

However, the Constitutional Council ruled that the prohibition of covering faces in public places does not restrict the exercise of religious liberty in places of worship opened to the public.

Last month, the country’s parliament passed the bill which prevents women from wearing full-face veil in public spaces across the country.

According to the law, women who defy the ban and insist on wearing burqa in administrations, hospitals and parks risk being fined 150 euros (208.98 U.S. dollars) or take a citizenship lesson while men if convicted of forcing their wives to wear the full- face veil will have to pay 30,000-euro fine and will risk one year in jail.

The sanctions will come into force next spring as it has passed all legal reviews in France.

The government says the ban is a necessary to restore security and preserve human rights but critics fear the measure is likely to stigmatize Muslims and fuel racism in the country where reside five million Muslims, holding Europe’s largest Islamic community. (1 U.S. dollar = 0.717 euro)