Saudi in niqab ‘not abused’ by Belgian police

JEDDAH: A Saudi woman in niqab, the full-face veil, was held briefly by police in Belgium to determine her identity, and was not harmed in any way, according to the Kingdom’s embassy in Brussels.
The embassy said in a statement quoted by a local publication that it had received a report on Tuesday, Nov. 10, that the police in Brussels had detained a Saudi citizen.
Embassy officials had contacted the police station and were told by a police officer that the woman and her family had left for their hotel. A Saudi official had then gone to meet the family and found them “safe and sound.”
The embassy said that the citizen and her family had been walking around in a tourist area in downtown Brussels when the police stopped them at 7 p.m. The husband said that the police officers told him the niqab was banned in Belgium and had to check his and his wife’s identity.
The police officers had asked them to go to a nearby police station and had a woman officer ask the wife to remove her niqab so she could check her identity. They were released at 7:50 p.m., the embassy said.
The embassy said that the Saudis were not abused in any way and officers had not tried to forcibly remove her niqab, as was speculated on social media. The embassy said that the man and his wife have now left Belgium.
According to reports, a law banning the full-face veil came into effect in Belgium in July 2011. The law bans any clothing that obscures the identity of the wearer in places like parks and on the street.
In December 2012, Belgium’s Constitutional Court rejected appeals for the ban to be annulled, ruling that it did not violate human rights. Before the law was passed, the burqa was already banned in several districts under old local laws originally designed to stop people masking their faces completely at carnival time.
France was the first European country to ban the full-face Islamic veil in public places. Under the ban that took effect on April 11, 2011, no woman, French or foreign, shall leave their home with their face hidden behind a veil. Violators run the risk of a fine, according to reports.
The penalty for doing so is a $217 fine and instruction in citizenship. Anyone found forcing a woman to cover her face risks a $32,259 fine.