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 |  Subject: Innocent driver nabbed wearing Islamic face veil fined in France  Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:44 am | |
| A woman driver wearing an Islamic face veil has been fined by French police for not having a clear field of vision. The fine was small, but it garnered big attention Friday and may illustrate what is to come as the president pushes to outlaw the veils nationwide.
Traffic police in the western city of Nantes fined the 31-year-old woman 22 euros ($A32) in early April, her lawyer Jean-Michel Pollono said. The fine was based on a rule that says drivers should have freedom of movement and a sufficient field of vision.
Pollono said on Friday he is protesting against the decision, saying a veil is no different from a motorcycle helmet in terms of hindrance to vision.
The driver gave a news conference on Friday - while wearing the niqab, which covers the entire face except for the eyes - and expressed "a feeling of injustice" over the incident.
"I didn't commit any infraction," said the driver, who declined to give her name. "I see just as well as you ... I have driven like this for nine years. I've not had any problems."
Pollono said his client, a French national, had never been stopped until now, after months of recent parliamentary discussion and government talk about possibly banning the veils.
President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the stakes Wednesday in France's drive to abolish the niqab, ordering a draft law banning them in all public places. He insists the veils oppress women and decided to defy France's highest administrative body, which says such a full ban could be found unconstitutional.
When the driver was stopped, the traffic police asked her to raise her veil to confirm her identity, and she complied, Pollono said.
"A French citizen cannot be fined based on the way he or she dresses," the lawyer said. "If the veil is forbidden behind the wheel, then nuns should not be able to drive, and full helmets for motorcyclists should be banned, because you can't see on the sides, and even some police units who drive with masks should be fined."
Sarkozy's move angered Muslims in the Arab world and worried Muslims in France, who fear they are being stigmatised because of a very small minority of women in France who cover their faces with niqabs or burqas.
A leading French conservative MP who has been at the forefront of the push against the veils, Jean-Francois Cope, has been given police protection, officials said on Friday.
Cope has had a security officer accompanying him since January, the two officials said. In January, Cope, head of the governing conservative party UMP in the lower house of parliament, submitted a proposed bill on banning the veil. The officials would not comment on a report in the French daily Le Parisien that Cope had received threats.
French officials have cited a concealed face as a security risk. Belgium is also considering a ban, and some Muslim countries have also struggled with how to deal with the veils.
France has western Europe's largest Muslim population, estimated at least five million. The French parliament outlawed Muslim headscarves and other "ostentatious" religious symbols from classrooms in 2004.
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