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Sri Lanka bans niqab veils after Easter attacks but will it make anyone safer?

  • The niqab is a black veil made of thin fabric, often with a small opening from which a woman’s eyes can peer out
  • It’s far more concealing than the hijab, a scarf covering the hair that some Muslim women wear

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Security personnel stand guard in front of St Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo. Photo: Reuters
Associated Press
As Sri Lanka’s long civil war ended in this once-contested region along its eastern coast, Muslim women eager to show their piousness began wearing the black niqab veil to hide their faces.
Now in the wake of Easter suicide attacks launched by Islamic State-linked militants that killed more than 250 people, Sri Lanka’s president has used his emergency powers to ban the practice previously unheard of in the island nation off the southern coast of India.
The ban, which took effect on Monday, has been touted as a security measure. However, it criminalises a practice more associated with an ultraconservative form of Islam previously unknown on the island, one that more closely adheres to the strict beliefs more common in Saudi Arabia.

It also can focus public suspicion on women who practice their religious beliefs peacefully, while the government and foreign diplomats say IS-linked militants armed with explosives still roam the island.

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“As we have seen in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Muslim women will become a convenient cover for military action,” wrote Nimmi Gowrinathan, a professor at the City College of New York. “Sri Lanka’s pain from the Easter attacks should not be used to promote failed policies.”

The niqab is a black veil made of thin fabric, often with a small opening from which a woman’s eyes can peer out. It’s far more concealing than the hijab, a scarf covering the hair that some Muslim women wear.

Most Islamic scholars and experts say a woman is not religiously required to cover her face with a niqab. However, strictly orthodox Sunni Muslims known as Salafists who advocate a literal return to centuries-old Islamic law believe women must cover their faces.

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