Banning and criminalising the Muslim face veil tests the very foundations of modern liberal society, warn researchers from Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Sussex.

The paper Reasons to Ban? The Anti-Burqa Movement in Western Europe examines the move to legislate against, and to criminalise face-veiling which has swept across the EU recently.

The European movement against face-veiling is now widespread, with calls to implement a ban, or a ban being in place, in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Germany.

This move from country to country makes it seem like a form of political Swine Flu, suggests the papers authors, Prakash Shah, Senior Lecturer at the School of Law, QM and Ralph Grillo, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at Sussex.

Face-veiling is capable of multiple interpretations, by those who wear it and those who do not, both Muslim and non-Muslim. Dr Shah explains: While some claim that face-veiling is a customary rather than religious practice, others condemn it as an instance of quintessential radical Islam  a Western extreme interpretation of Islam and Muslim practice.

The current rush to legislate, the academics note, is set in the context of a backlash against multiculturalism that has been developing across Europe. In France and other countries, security, identification and order have been central to legislative debates since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Despite less than one per cent of Muslim women wearing the burqa or niqab in the West, critics also argue that the veil impedes societal integration and breeds dangers inherent in self-enclosed communities. It is seen as a symbol of the failure of the Muslim women who wear the veil to visibly declare their loyalty to the nation-state where they reside.

In Britain, and other countries too, multicultural diversity is officially welcomed, but not when interpreted as difference. Difference, explains Dr Shah, is identified as beliefs and practices which contravene principles of liberal democracy that underpin governance in much of Europe.

Dr Shah says: What was previously thought tolerable has now become unacceptable, and moreover, subject to the law. The legislation which has criminalised face-veiling has clearly originated with the belief, that face-veiling does not fit with European society, culture and values, and has all manner of disagreeable if not downright dangerous implications, especially for women.

Face-veiling signifies an unwelcome racial or cultural presence, making it impossible for Muslims to be treated as European unless they adopt European sartorial practice.

Face-veiling is one of those issues, like public prayers or arranged marriages, affected by a repressive liberalism of the kind advocated by numerous European leaders, including Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron, often with racist undertones.

The educative role of law is brought to bear upon ethnic and religious minorities in an effort to instruct, by force if necessary, the values of liberalism, warns Professor Grillo.

It is also clear that many opponents sincerely believe that whether a religious or cultural symbol, face veiling is a non-liberal practice that penalises and subordinates women.

If women claim that they are not coerced into face-veiling but do so because it accords with their faith, then it is countered by saying, they have been brainwashed, notes the research.

Freeing women from what is believed to be their submission to a patriarchal society, overrides their freedom to choose and express their religious beliefs. Anti-face-veiling discourse operates like a closed system, impervious to argument, says Professor Grillo.

Criminalisation, the researchers argue, should always be a last resort, not least when it may harm those it is supposed to assist, for example, forcing women who voluntarily adopt the face-veil to disappear from public life.

Legislators have sought to impose a particular narrative of the face-veil, and it is unfortunate that they have taken it upon themselves to declare a position strongly against face-veiling based on a number of narrow grounds. Leaning on the law stifles what might otherwise be a natural dialogue among Muslims and non-Muslims, about the veils significance and future in Europe, Dr Shah concludes.

The full paper, Reasons to Ban? The Anti-Burqa Movement in Western Europe, is accessible, via: www.mmg.mpg.de/publications/wo … apers/2012/wp-12-05/