In two separate cases, judges forced veiled women to either leave the court or take off their veil. Meanwhile, Italy takes another step towards a full-face veil ban.
Via France24:
A French court on Friday expelled a woman from the public gallery for wearing the full Islamic veil, the day after a law banning the garment cleared its final hurdle, an AFP correspondent reported.
"Those people whose faces are visible are allowed to remain in the room wearing their headscarves. However, not that woman in the front row with only the eyes visible," said the presiding judge.
"She is asked to leave the room or take off her veil," she said during the hearing at Bobigny, northeast of Paris, in the case of two men accused of breaking into the home of a local imam who was in favour of the burqa ban.
"I'm not surprised. I was expecting it, but I still took the risk," the expelled woman told AFP afterwards, identifying herself only as a 35-year-old from the nearby neighbourhood of Saint Denis.
(more)
Via the Telegraph:
Magistrates ordered a pregnant Muslim woman to remove her veil while she gave evidence against her violent ex-partner.
Georgina Richards, 36, initially refused for religious reasons but reluctantly agreed when JPs said they might not accept her evidence if they could not see her "facial expressions".
The case at Leicester Magistrates Court on Thursday was held up for over an hour while magistrates agreed to hear her evidence from behind a screen.
Lawrence Faulkner, one of the magistrates, told her: "We need to see a person's facial expressions to assess the evidence they are giving.
"If you refuse to remove your veil we may not be able to accept your evidence."
(more)
