Germany to ban civil servants, judges, soldiers from wearing full-face veil

[webfact]

Germany to ban civil servants, judges, soldiers from wearing full-face veil

REUTERS

 

A woman wearing a headscarf walks through a street in Berlin's Neukoelln district September 6, 2010. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

 

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament agreed to a draft law on Thursday that will prevent civil servants, judges and soldiers in Germany from wearing full-face veils at work.

 

The move comes after Chancellor Angela Merkel called in December for a ban on full-face Muslim veils "wherever legally possible". There are five months to go before a federal election, and her conservatives lost some support to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) during the migrant crisis..

 

More than a million migrants, many of them Muslims from the Middle East, have arrived in Germany over the last two years, and concerns about integration are widespread.

 

"Integration also means that we should make clear and impart our values and where the boundaries of our tolerance towards other cultures lie," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. "The draft law we have agreed on makes an important contribution to that."

 

In February, the southern state of Bavaria, ruled by the Christian Social Union (CSU) - the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's conservatives - said it would ban the full-face veil in schools, universities, government workplaces and polling stations.

 

(Reporting by Michelle Martin, editing by Larry King)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-04-28

[edwinchester]

Pretty meaningless when I'd guess the number of civil servants, judges and soldiers wearing a full face veil to work is next to zero.....or less.

[lovelomsak]

Cheap shot by Merkel to try and win right wing votes.

[Hayduke]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

....Chancellor Angela Merkel called in December for a ban on full-face Muslim veils "wherever legally possible".

Wherever legally possible???

 

[lemonjelly]

Should be banned in public in the western world.

[asiaexpat]

Immigrants, wherever they come from, must integrate and accept the national values and culture or be considered perpetual migrants. They earn the bias attached to migrant status and will never be considered first class citizens. 

[ballpoint]

The state beekeeper isn't going to be happy.

[humqdpf]

The most amazing part of this story is that Thai Visa did not take the opportunity to headline it as follows:

Germany Bans Faceless Bureaucrats

[elgordo38]

5 hours ago, edwinchester said:

Pretty meaningless when I'd guess the number of civil servants, judges and soldiers wearing a full face veil to work is next to zero.....or less.

You caught onto this one pretty fast. 

[ilostmypassword]

2 hours ago, humqdpf said:

The most amazing part of this story is that Thai Visa did not take the opportunity to headline it as follows:

Germany Bans Faceless Bureaucrats

Most of the jokes made here, including mine, are pretty lame at best. Yours was brilliant.

[Andaman Al]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

Germany to ban civil servants, judges, soldiers from wearing full-face veil

Well I wouldn't be the one to take this guys full face veil of him 

 

[Saradoc1972]

8 hours ago, edwinchester said:

Pretty meaningless when I'd guess the number of civil servants, judges and soldiers wearing a full face veil to work is next to zero.....or less.

Some Turkish women became school teachers, in numbers to speak of, now the first Muslim women start appearing in courts serving their articles. We have had the latter for 20 years but now we are getting singular cases that will insist on their headscarves sitting behind the bar. The matter has been simmering for at least a dozen years.

[ilostmypassword]

5 minutes ago, Saradoc1972 said:

Some Turkish women became school teachers, in numbers to speak of, now the first Muslim women start appearing in courts serving their articles. We have had the latter for 20 years but now we are getting singular cases that will insist on their headscarves sitting behind the bar. The matter has been simmering for at least a dozen years.

I don't think the issue in Germany is headscarves, it's veils. And don't English judges traditionally wear wigs?

[wabothai]

10 hours ago, edwinchester said:

Pretty meaningless when I'd guess the number of civil servants, judges and soldiers wearing a full face veil to work is next to zero.....or less.

How about the police? 100's of them with full face hidden.

 

[Saradoc1972]

29 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

I don't think the issue in Germany is headscarves, it's veils. And don't English judges traditionally wear wigs?

No, it's headscarves, too, in public offices. There was a case of a Christian refugee from Syria? Iraq? that had his asylum case heard and rejected by a civil servant wearing a headscarf, i.e. being obviously Muslim. Did not like it, which I can understand, regardless of the merits of his case.

 

Next, so far hypothetical, possible case: Turkish car driver and German car driver in a lawsuit over a traffic accident, single judge wears a headscarf.

 

That wig is different, it's not a symbol of religiosity and will not instill a subjective feeling of bias in a party or defendant. 

With teachers, I see things a bit more moderate. Those will be 25 or so once they start, can wear a headscarf out of their own free will, like nuns in schools wear their full ornate. Here it is the pupils that should be banned from wearing a scarf, so their parents cannot make them.

[Saradoc1972]

38 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

I don't think the issue in Germany is headscarves, it's veils. And don't English judges traditionally wear wigs?

You are actually right in that the present issue, i.e. what has been passed by federal parliament, only concerns Niqabs and Burkas, not scarves. Got this messed up because that is in fact in the make in Hessia and Bavaria, which as the states in Germany are responsible for justice and education, i.e. court personnel and teachers. 

[anon4546543]

Years ago, almost seems like millennia, I was told by a Malay (it was Malay not Malaysia) lady that the wearing of head gear by Muslims was a cultural aspect of Islam, not a religious requirement. I was dating her at the time and that shows how we seemed to be liberated back then and how things have radically changed. But her family had lived in Australia for many generations. It seems to be the new so called migrants that a tolerant western society has allowed to invade that is causing the security problems and social instability. Not hard to see how so many Muslims are accepted as "migrants", go to the immigration, customs and cultural affairs offices in Australia and you will probably be greeted from someone from Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, India - all wearing some form of head wear. Just an observation 

[anon4546543]

4 minutes ago, spiderorchid said:

Years ago, almost seems like millennia, I was told by a Malay (it was Malay not Malaysia) lady that the wearing of head gear by Muslims was a cultural aspect of Islam, not a religious requirement. I was dating her at the time and that shows how we seemed to be liberated back then and how things have radically changed. But her family had lived in Australia for many generations. It seems to be the new so called migrants that a tolerant western society has allowed to invade that is causing the security problems and social instability. Not hard to see how so many Muslims are accepted as "migrants", go to the immigration, customs and cultural affairs offices in Australia and you will probably be greeted from someone from Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, India - all wearing some form of head wear. Just an observation 

Just as an aside, I have no real problems with headscarves. That has always been a fashion accessory from time to time in western civilisations. Italian and Greek ladies wear it in mourning, nuns and others wear it as do nurses and so on. But the full head body bag is extreme, it is a threat to security and identification and has no place in a civilised western society. If "migrants" can't accept that, then go somewhere where it is accepted. Migrants can only pick and choose so much before their demands become nonsense

[Stargeezr]

If you or I go into a bank with a face mask, the guards would shoot us as they would consider us to be robbers, so why should people be allowed face masks or scarfs, period.  Culture  is also a thing that the immigrants should understand is important, and do their best to blend in to the country where they immigrated. That does not happen anymore, and the immigrants are trying to push their culture onto the country where they immigrated.

Geezer

[ilostmypassword]

3 hours ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

If you or I go into a bank with a face mask, the guards would shoot us as they would consider us to be robbers, so why should people be allowed face masks or scarfs, period.  Culture  is also a thing that the immigrants should understand is important, and do their best to blend in to the country where they immigrated. That does not happen anymore, and the immigrants are trying to push their culture onto the country where they immigrated.

Geezer

You mean if a woman went into a bank wearing a scarf on her head, the guards would shoot her? Really? 

[Naam]

On 4/28/2017 at 5:51 AM, webfact said:

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament agreed to a draft law on Thursday that will prevent civil servants, judges and soldiers in Germany from wearing full-face veils at work.

Reuters journàrselism at its best!

[dick dasterdly]

2 hours ago, Naam said:

Reuters journàrselism at its best!

I think Reuters were just reporting the facts in this case - namely that "Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament agreed to a draft law on Thursday that will prevent civil servants, judges and soldiers in Germany from wearing full-face veils at work."

 

But I agree, they should have pointed out that this will change nothing - as per Edwinchester's post.

 

Can't be bothered to nit-pick over whether or not a full-face veil is the same as the head coverings worn by soldiers on combat missions.

Edited April 29, 2017 by dick dasterdly

[champers]

8 hours ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

If you or I go into a bank with a face mask, the guards would shoot us as they would consider us to be robbers, so why should people be allowed face masks or scarfs, period.  Culture  is also a thing that the immigrants should understand is important, and do their best to blend in to the country where they immigrated. That does not happen anymore, and the immigrants are trying to push their culture onto the country where they immigrated.

Geezer

You must be American; shoot first, ask questions later. Civilised Western countries don't have armed guards in banks.