Swiss Lawmakers Reject Burqa Ban

Swiss lawmakers have voted against a ban on the Muslim women burqa (face veil), putting an end to plans made by far right parties several years ago. “Today in Switzerland, wearing this type of clothing for religious reasons doesn’t pose any problems in daily life and is a rare practice in the Swiss Muslim community,” centre-right Radical Party parliamentarian Hugues Hiltpold said. Following a March Senate vote with the same result, the lower house of the Swiss parliament rejected the motion pushed by the canton of Aargau in a vote of 93 to 87.

The burqa ban proposal was first made by far-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP) under the title “Masks Off”.

It proposed a ban on wearing of face-veils, which is also called Niqab, on public transport. The bill also allowed authorities to “ban or restrict access to public buildings to such individuals in order to guarantee the security of other users.” Far right lawmakers had argued that the ban was necessary for public safety. But opponents said the proposal was excessive because so few women wear burqas in Switzerland.
The wearing of face-veil has been the focus of growing debate in the West in recent years.While hijab is an obligatory code of dress for Muslim women, the majority of Muslim scholars agree that a woman is not obliged to wear the face veil. Scholars believe it is up to women to decide whether to take on the veil or burka, a loose outfit covering the whole body from head to toe and wore by some Muslim women.
Hurting Muslims
Speaking for the majority, Hiltpold said banning the burqa would be excessive and would encourage tourists from Muslim countries to have negative opinions of the country. Affecting the country’s image abroad, he added that a ban on Muslim face veil would have bad effect on the countries Muslim minority. “Banning the niqab or the burka in Switzerland would have adverse consequences for Swiss Muslims.”
The proposed ban on burqa is not the first move by far right politicians against the country’s Muslim minority.
In 2009, the SVP has championed a ban on the building of mosque minarets in the European country.
According to the CIA Factbook, Switzerland is home to some 400,000 Muslims, representing 5 percent of the country’s nearly eight million people.

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Net Cafes – It’s Time to Shutter them Down

It’s a paradox that a country like Pakistan, which was built to practice Islam and was often called ‘Laboratory of Islam’ by its founder, has now fallen a prey to some un-Islamic norms of which net cafes is one of the darkest un-Islamic practice. Net-Cafes that were originally built to provide internet facilities to public in those times when internet was a new phenomenon and was not readily available as is now, has now become an immoral platform corrupting our youth badly.  According to the statistics, Pakistan is one of the top searchers of porn sites and videos, a really shameful fact for an Islamic Republic.

Those unemployed people, who are uneducated, see promising prospects of business in providing cabins in internet cafes. As Muslims it a double-fold sin of providing access of pornography and earning through this dirty business. Though the economic conditions of Pakistan do not leave much choice for the people to choose an earning, which is the most frequent excuse for the net café earners, but we ought to think that our religious values come first, and it is not only a religious issue but a moral one too. No religion or nation allows the blasphemy done to its youth as the net café is doing.

 Most of the net café users are young people, while, mature people seldom goes to a net café. To add evil to this immoral business, the net café holders have introduced cabins and couples use these cabins for dating purposes, not realizing that a hidden camera is capturing their activities, which, the net café owners upload on YouTube and other such site for the so-called entertainment and use these to blackmail the couples.

It’s a high time to think seriously to overcome this immoral disease otherwise it will eat us up as a nation. Our youth is wasting money and values in the net cafes in the dark alleys and it is time to show them the light. They should learn to be a proud nation by saying no to this immoral net café business. Youth is the most flexible entity of a nation easily influenced by changes, if the seed of net café can yield in them why not the hope of getting rid of it. So let’s promise to spread this hope among our youth and shutter the internet cafes down.

By: Sara Waqar

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