Not the first, and others are on the way.

Denmark is the latest European country to take part in a string of discriminatory bans on the religious headwear favoured by some Muslim women, known as the Niqab. Whilst bans have been in place in the continent for the past decade, the trend has recently picked up, with new bans being implemented after a controversial ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that banning the veil did not breach human rights. This has led to a wave of full and partial bans across the continent, with Denmark being the latest. Muslim organisations and human rights groups, such as the Danish group ‘Kvinder | Dialog’, have protested the bans, accusing legislators of targeting Muslim women. Legislators have claimed their policies are non-discriminatory, and apply to people of all religious denominations, despite the bans mainly affecting Muslim women who wear the niqab. Amnesty International described the latest ban as a “discriminatory violation of women’s rights.”

“If the intention of this law was to protect women’s rights it fails abjectly,” said Amnesty International’s Europe director Gauri van Gulik. “Instead, the law criminalizes women for their choice of clothing and in so doing flies in the face of those freedoms Denmark purports to uphold.”

May Allah protect our brothers and sisters in Europe!