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The federal government will appeal a court ruling allowing a Muslim woman to wear a niqab while taking the oath of citizenship because it is “offensive” to shield your face at the moment you are being sworn in, the prime minister said Thursday.

Zunera Ishaq, the Toronto woman who challenged the government’s policy forbidding the wearing of facial coverings during the swearing-in part of citizenship ceremonies, said Thursday she was upset by the prime minister’s remarks but vowed to continue fighting through the court process.

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“I’m not frustrated,” she said. “I’m determined.”

Just a day earlier, Ishaq, the mother of three, had expressed how excited she was at the prospect of becoming a citizen after a federal judge had deemed the niqab ban — introduced by former immigration minister Jason Kenney in 2011 ­— unlawful.

Judge Keith Boswell said the policy didn’t jive with the government’s own regulations, which require citizenship judges to administer the oath with “dignity and solemnity, allowing the greatest possible freedom in the religious solemnization or the solemn affirmation thereof.”