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UKIP manifesto to pledge burka ban

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Published: 10:32, 23 April 2017   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
UKIP manifesto to pledge burka ban

International Desk: UK Independence party (UKIP) is to include a ban on the full veils worn by some Muslim women as part of its general election manifesto, its leader Paul Nuttall has said.

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show Nuttall said wearing a burka or niqab in public was a barrier to integration and a security risk.

Muslim women who defied the ban would face a fine, he suggested.

UKIP's "integration agenda", to be launched on Monday, will also propose outlawing sharia law.

'EU-wide ban'

Mr Nuttall told the programme: "We have a heightened security risk at the moment and for CCTV to be effective you need to see people's faces.

"Secondly, there's the issue of integration. I don't believe you can integrate fully and enjoy the fruits of British society if you can't see people's faces.

"I can't walk into a bank with a balaclava on or a crash helmet, if I can't do it and other people can't do it, I don't see why there are special interests for certain people."

He said that being "hidden behind the veil" contributed to 58% of Muslim women being economically inactive.

Guide to Muslim headscarves

Nuttall said: "We'll come in line with other European countries such as Belgium, Bulgaria - there's a ban for example in the city of Barcelona, some places in Italy and, indeed, Angela Merkel is talking about this in Germany at the moment.

"Manfred Weber, who's the leader of the biggest group in the European Parliament, is now talking about an EU-wide ban. We can either be on the curve on this or behind the curve."

Nuttall also told the programme that he wanted to prevent sharia law becoming "a parallel legal system in this country".

"It cannot be right that we have court or councils in this country where the word of a woman is only worth half that of a man. That has no place in a liberal, democratic, functioning Western democracy," he said.

But he said that Beth Din, Jewish rabbinical courts, would not be affected, because they had been established for centuries and the Orthodox Jewish population was falling.

BBC


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