Via EurActive:
The Council of Europe, the oldest European institution which specialises in human rights, today (20 July) strongly criticised recent French and Belgian legislation targeting the burqa, a veil that covers entirely women's faces.
Penalising women who wear the burqa does not liberate them, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said today in a written statement.
(...)
Instead, Hammarberg insists that the way the dress of a small number of women has been portrayed as a major problem requiring urgent discussion and legislation is "a sad capitulation to the prejudices of xenophobes".(source)
