Balancing Religion and Integration

[rug]

By ALAN COWELL
Published: September 19, 2013

LONDON — When a judge ruled that a 22-year-old Muslim defendant must remove her full-face veil during testimony — albeit behind a screen so that only the judge, jury and lawyers might track her facial responses — there was much heady talk about the implications for Europe’s restless and unresolved struggle with issues of faith and identity, tolerance and freedom.

But a pithier riposte came from Salma Yaqoob, a Muslim and former city councilwoman in Birmingham who rhetorically asked a reporter from The Guardian whether the full-face veil, the niqab, should really absorb so much debate in a land seized with far broader social and economic challenges.

“Is this the biggest issue we face in the U.K. right now?” she asked.

But it was not an issue that was likely to go away: four days after the court ruling, there were reports that 17 hospitals had also ordered staff to remove full-face veils when in contact with patients. And the question arose whether the furor was not so much about the niqab, a supposed symbol of piety, as the telltale marker of a deeper sense of difference between faiths, sharpened by years of war in Muslim lands abroad that wrenched Britain’s social fabric at home.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/world/europe/balancing-religion-and-integration.html?_r=0

[cbayer]

1. Tectonic shifts, a phrase used in the article, is exactly what it happening.

As the demographics change and change pretty dramatically, this is growing into an epic battle.

One can only hope that an increase in tolerance and understanding will be the final outcome, but, in the battle to get there, I think we are going to see much less tolerance for awhile.

And I doubt it's just about religious garb, but other profound cultural differences that challenge these pretty homogenous countries.

[struggle4progress]

2. The tradition of jury trial presupposes the jury is able to form some impression

regarding the veracity of the witness, based on clues including reactions as indicated by facial expression, as in Coy v. Iowa, and there seem currently to be options like closed circuit TV that would allow a witness to testify without actually baring her face before the public, as in Maryland v. Craig