(RNS) Islamophobic or empowering? Those are among the reactions to a new Diesel jeans ad featuring a heavily tattooed, topless white woman wearing a redesigned, denim burqa. The slogan next to her: “I Am Not What I Appear To Be.” Racist and condescending are among the criticisms that have been leveled at the ad, created…
The Queen of Pop is at it again. Madonna loves touting a gun or wearing fishnets and spandex at an age when most of us prefer to cover up. But her latest outfit is more controversial still. She has been pictured wearing a chainmail mask resembling a niqab – a face veil worn by…
Daniel Pipes—profiled as “the country’s most controversial Middle East scholar“—is stirring debate again, taking to The Jewish Press to advocate a ban on wearing the niqab and burqa—clothing traditionally worn by Muslim women—in public spots. He says too many Philly crimes (including the recent kidnapping of a girl from her school) are taking place under,…
September 1, 2012 The French law banning the full-face veil from public spaces has been controversial from the start, with loud debates about the meaning of liberty, individual rights, the freedoms of religion and expression, and the nature of laïcité, or secularism, in the French republic. While pushed by the center-right and former President…
23 May 2012 Proposals to ban the burqa and dual nationality in the Netherlands remain in process in Dutch parliament, home affairs minister Liesbeth Spies states. With the government collapsed in May, Spies has commented that the legislation could be dropped, given that the sponsoring PVV (Freedom) Party no longer formed the supporting member…
