As reported by one Reshni Ratnam for Quest Newspapers just the other day. The politician in question is a candidate for a seat in the upcoming State elections in Queensland, Australia.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/ipswich-independant-candidate-patrica-peterson-says-the-burqa-should-be-banned-for-security-r

'Ipswich Independent Candidate Patrica (sic: Patricia? - CM) Petersen Says the Burqa Should Be Banned For Security Reasons.'

Yes. - CM

'Independent candidate for Ipswich (an electorate centred on the urban hub of Ipswich, originally a separate town but now a commuter suburb of the city of Brisbane - CM) has called on the government to ban the wearing of a burqa or balaclava in public.

That is, a ban on the masking of the face in public. Which would, of course, exclude the niqab as well as the burqa. - CM

'Dr Petersen said her views had changed regarding women and burqas after she travelled overseas in November and listened first hand to what Muslim women (some Muslim women; those of a somewhat less fanatical persuasion - CM) wanted.

"I had always adopted the politically correct view that women should be able to wear whatever they wanted and if they chose to cover their faces in public that was their business, not mine and not the government's", Dr Petersen said.

"When I travelled to Dubai I was gobsmacked. Young Muslim women told me that they wanted my support, that they didn't want to be culturally intimidated into covering their faces."

'Dr Petersen claimed she was told [that] wearing the burqa and niqaab were not prescribed by Islamic law.

The texts are ambiguous. But even if the texts unequivocally demanded the masking of the female face, that is no reason for permitting it within Infidel lands. Public safety - and the prevention of the myriad opportunities for crime that are presented by having women (or are they women? sometimes they are not, they are males disguising themselves) scuttling around with faces hidden. Furthermore, as a doctor, surely Dr Petersen is aware of the major problem of Vitamin D deficiency and other health and safety issues that are associated with the burqa and niqab. - CM

'Sitting member for Ipswich Ian Berry said he understood where Dr Petersen was coming from, in terms of women's rights, but said religious freedom should be observed.

"Religious freedom". The only 'freedom' orthodox Islam recognises is the right to impose Muslim dominance, and the sharia of Islam, on all humans everywhere. Mr Berry needs to get a clue as to just how many women are forced to wear the veil both within Islamic lands and in Islamic communities in otherwise non-Muslim lands, by the open threat of violence, and by actual violence; in Muslim lands, this includes many or most non-Muslim women, as well. He should look up how many women - in the West as well as in the lands of Islam - have been killed after refusing to wear it. In the series "Undercover Mosque" one of the Islamic preachers - recorded within a mosque in the UK - stated bluntly that, "If she doesn't wear hijab, we hit her". He also needs to realize - and Dr Petersen needs to understand, also - that these garments are an in-your-face declaration of Islam's claim to supremacy. In an article entitled "Outlaw the Hijab", published in 2009, an Israeli scholar, N Maruani, summarises the views of an Iranian woman in France, one Shahdortt Djavann, who was fully in favour of the French ban on hijab in state schools, and the French burqa ban. Djavann has stated that the veil - and she means the Islamic female coverup in all its forms, even the faux-demure headscarf that deceptively mimicks the nun's wimple - "constitutes a constant call to order by Islamic law"; that "the veil has never been innocent or innocuous. It has always signified the submission of women to men and the denial of legal rights to women in Islamic countries." And, more, "the veil is the symbol, the flag and the keystone of the Islamic system". This thing is not about religious freedom at all; it is more like a Swastika armband, a declaration - whether forced or voluntary - of the wearer's submission to a system whose adherents are required to strive - that is, wage jihad - until all human beings everywhere are subjected to that system within a global despotism. - CM

"Any person can impose a right of entry - whether you are at a shop or a bank" he said.

"They (Muslims) aren't ot a threat to society.

Really? Tell that to the family and friends of Theo Van Gogh, to the family and friends of the seventeen people whom entirely-orthodox Muslims murdered in France just this month, to the people of Sydney - especially to those non-Muslims who have been driven out of Lakemba and Auburn and parts of neighbouring suburbs by relentless Muslim harassment, bullying and threats (including threats made and insults offered to unislamically-dressed Infidel women who dared walk down the street in Islamified areas), and to all the other myriad people world-wide who have suffered every imaginable kind of mistreatment from Muslims in the course of the past year, or just the past month. Tell it to the families of the four rabbis who were murdered in a synagogue by allahu-akbaring Muslims who barged into that place of worship bearing guns and axes, and cut down unarmed men as they prayed. Tell it to Kurt Westergaard who was attacked in his own home by an axe-bearing Muslim who wished to kill him for having drawn a cartoon of a 'turban-bomb' Mohammed. And ask yourself whether ASIO and the AFP are having to anxiously monitor Buddhists, Christians, Jews or Hindus in Australia, and the meeting places of same, in the same way as they are, undoubtedly, having to anxiously monitor mosques, and Muslims. - CM

"I believe in religious freedom and we should observe that."

But not the freedom to impose one's religion, willy nilly, by force - including the threat of death - upon others who do not believe it. Which is what we see Muslims doing in many parts of the world, right now. - CM

'However, Mr Berry said Muslim women could avoid conflict by wearing more western clothing.

'He acknowledged Dr Petersen's reasons for raising the issue.

"We need to compare ideals as a society, this country is so tolerant", he said.

But Islam - orthodox Islam, the imitatio Mohammedi - is not tolerant at all. It demands Submission. It demands to dominate...everywhere. Over everyone. How can a society remain tolerant if it permits into its midst an ever-expanding 'community' that demands the right to dominate and domineer over everyone else? - CM

'Islamic Society of Ipswich president Jemele Deen said it was a personal choice for Muslim women to be covered up.

Sez he. He would. He won't tell us that they are taught that allah will not hear their prayers if they are not covered. Not will he tell us that they are very often threatened and even physically attacked by Muslim men, if they refuse to cover up to the degree and in the manner that those men may happen to demand. Australian journalist, Geraldine Brooks, in her book "Nine Parts of Desire", recounts a conversation she had with a local Arab nurse in Gaza, who was not Muslim, but Christian. The young nurse - who had gone out without a headscarf - came in crying from the market, her uniform stained with the marks of rotten fruit. The young Muslim men at the market had abused her and told her to cover her head, and then they threw rotten fruit at her and told her that if she did not cover up, "next time it would be acid". Somehow I think Jemele Deen doesn't want us to think or ask questions about things like that. - CM

"Muslim women choose to be covered up and others don't. It's the same for Australian women, some choose to cover themselves up and others choose not to", he said.

Will you tell us, Mr Deen, that you regard any unislamically-dressed woman as, essentially, naked; indeed, as the equivalent of an exposed pudendum? No matter how modestly dressed she may be by our standards? You won't, will you? But that is in fact the case. Nonie Darwish, ex-Muslim, discusses the subject of the uncovered woman in her book on sharia, "Cruel and Usual Punishment". - CM

"This is a free country and anyone who makes a statement such as Dr Petersen is a dictator".

No, she is in fact supporting a woman's freedom to show her face, and she is also concerned about public safety. - CM

'He said wearing a burqa was a choice Muslim women made themselves.

Suuuuure it is. Pull the other leg, mate, it's got bells on. Want to explain to us why a Muslim preacher in a British mosque would say, "If she doesn't wear hijab, we hit her?" - CM

"Meanwhile Dr Petersen, of Riverview, claims she has not met a Muslim in the Ipswich electorate who did not support her call to ban the burqa.

"It's un-Australian to cover our faces. We are an open society. Covering the face is totally unnecessary", Dr Petersen said.

Stick to that line, Dr Petersen. Dont' give an inch on it. And remember the security issue. - CM

"The women I have talked to say that their God asks them to cover their heads and that this can be done by them wearing a hijab or scarf".

However, it might be interesting to chat quietly to some of the younger girls and ask them what might happen to them if they took off the scarf...Whether the scarf or the full burqa, it's still the Sharia Badge, the Slave Rag, the symbol of the woman's membership in and subordination within the Islamic system, a system that seeks nothing less than total world domination. -CM

'"They said wearing a burqa or niqab gave Islam a "bad image"."

And that's what their - temporary and tactical - agreement with you is all about. The image of Islam. Whether or not a thing benefits Islam, the longterm goal of which is "to dominate, and not be dominated". If the burqa or niqab alarm and annoy the circumambient Infidels, who are currently too strong and too numerous to be summarily subjugated, then the burqa or niqab will be temporarily abandoned. - CM

'Dr Petersen admitted she had been under the impression it was part of Muslim culture to wear a burqa.

"It's extremist and radical views that are forcing them to wear the burqa" she said.

"It's a no-brainer. We need to get on board and do what Muslim women want".

Dr Petersen: but if in ten years time they turn around and demand that a burqa ban that they once supported must be rescinded, and they all don the burqa or niqab, what then? Forget about what they want; what matters is the safety of Australian infidels, and the nature of our society, which got along perfectly well without Muslims and Muslim face-coverings, throughout thousands of years of aboriginal history, and then in the 200 years of Euro-Australian history that preceded a - foolishly-admitted - flood of Muslims from the 1970s onward. - CM

'Dr Petersen said that she supported a ban on both burqas and balaclavas for security reasons.

Stick to that line, Dr Petersen. Just stick to that, and don't give up. - CM

"It's also safer for communities if faces are exposed. We don't feel comfortable with people wearing balaclavas. We should ban any piece of clothing, balaclavas, burqas, any other face covering, from being worn in public", she said.

'Dr Petersen said judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have upheld France's burqa ban, accepting Paris's argument that it encouraged citizens to "live together".

Nice one. - CM

"The ECHR has rejected the claim it is discriminatory. It has accepted the argument that removing face covering encourages social communication, the right to interact with someone by looking at them in the face, and assists with integration", she said.

And it allows us to judge their demeanour and assess whether they may in fact be intending an act of aggression'; and - this is particularly of importance in the courts, but not only the courts - it allows us to assess whether someone may be lying, or not. - CM

'ALP candidate for Ipswich Jennifer Howard said it was not an issue she wanted to comment on.

"People have the right to wear what they want to wear", she said.

Not if people demand to wear a mask that impedes the ability of others around them to assess the presence or absence of aggression, the presence or absence of deception. Not if people demand the 'right' to wear masks and all-enveloping cloaks that make the task of law enforcement more difficult by allowing persons committing a crime to conceal their identity - even their gender - from both CCTV and eyewitnesses. Ban the burqa and niqab.

Click on the link and read the Comments: there are quite a lot of them, and they are interesting. Many are very well-informed, and fully in favour of a burqa-and-niqab ban.

I suspect that if any of Australia's political parties were to make a "burqa-and-niqab ban" a part of their public platform - relentlessly hammering both the security angle and the social integration angle so intelligently used by the French - they might find themselves garnering a tremendous lot of votes.