A Muslim Woman Was Forced To Strip By Armed French Police On A Public Beach
And it happened with the full backing of the law.
By Sadho Ram — 24 Aug 2016, 08:42 PM
Covering your body in France is now a crime
In what can only be described as a so-called progressive Western European country joining famously regressive countries like Saudi and Iran where a dress code on women is enforced through moral policing with the full backing of the law, French police officers armed with pepper spray and batons ordered — under the country's burkini ban — a Muslim woman to strip down in full view of public on a beach in the city of Nice.
The only difference here is that while women in Saudi and Iran are forced to cover their bodies from head to toe, women in France are now subjected to the country's law that prohibits them from covering their body at public beaches by wearing the burkini.
Photographed on a beach in Nice, police can be seen standing around a middle-aged Muslim woman in a headscarf and long-sleeved top as she strips off layers of her clothing at their demand
The Muslim woman was quietly sunbathing on the Promenade des Anglais beach in Nice when she was approached by four police officers, who stood over and watched her take off her kurti like top
The shocking incident has since sparked outrage on Twitter
Just let this sink in. Men with guns forcing a women to undress, with the weight of the law behind them. pic.twitter.com/4BI16Bbss9
— Abdul-Azim আজিম (@AbdulAzim) August 23, 2016
Bunch of men stand around and order a woman to strip. This is what 'good morals and secularism' looks like in Francehttps://t.co/kFNXFkOs14
— Lekha Sridhar (@lekha_sridhar) August 24, 2016
Welcome to France where clothes are dangerous. They made her remove her clothes on the beach. #Islamophobia https://t.co/8aTCJ6T9hC
— a. ally (@allyinator) August 24, 2016
so it's offensive to cover up on the beach but it's not offensive to ask women to undress in public. it's a disgrace https://t.co/Y0DhSylMED
— Dr. Masuma Rahim (@MasumaRahim) August 23, 2016
The city of Nice is the latest of 15 French towns to ban the burkini. According to teleSUR, the mayor of nearby Villeneuve-Loubet said that the ban was important to "protect the population."
Last week three Muslim women were fined $US43 for wearing burkinis in Cannes. On Tuesday, a mother of two reported she had been fined on the Cannes beach for wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended the ban, saying that "Beaches, like all public areas, must be protected from religious claims. The burkini is not a new range of swimwear, a fashion. It is the expression of a political project, a counter-society, based notably on the enslavement of women."
The situation in France where women are having their liberties stripped in the name of freedom, while others in the name of religion is best summed up in this cartoon drawn by Khartoon:
