2021, the Taliban return to power in Afghanistan. Women are the main target of the new government of terror. They are once again exploited and prevented from studying, they see the return of repression. None can travel alone, undertake business or sign contracts, all are subjected to insane servility by men.
The Western world revolts, promotes demonstrations, receives refugees. Human rights are not negotiable in the face of a regime that takes religious foundations to levels that are unbearable today.
There is a social and religious reality, in many Muslim states, that forces women to cover their entire bodies. In others, the obligation saves the eyes from the prohibition. The woman is transformed into a scarecrow without any right to be who she wants to be, to express herself to her fullest.
Several Islamic countries have moved towards prohibiting these impositions because today’s understanding of the so-called Hijab It has dubious theological support, as can be seen in chapter 24, verses 30 and 31, and in chapter 33, verse 59, both of the Qur’an. These countries therefore consider that the impediments do not come from sacred texts, they are the result of interpretations that, through the sacred, greatly imply the temporal.
Furthermore, these coercions, which exist in many Islamic territories and in communities around the world, served as a means of “holy war” and created serious security problems.
Last week, the Portuguese parliament discussed a bill that supposedly aims to prevent people from walking on the street with their faces covered. This initiative was immediately linked to the use of horoscope or niqab and with the right that women have to do whatever they want. There were no arguments left in the debate regarding the respect due to the Constitution when it assumes the right to religious freedom.
Let’s forget, for now, the author of the project and look at what is written in the text.
Article 2 clearly states what is intended – the use, in public spaces, of clothing designed to hide or obstruct the display of one’s face is prohibited. And what’s more, it is prohibited to force someone to hide their face for reasons of gender or religion. Therefore, Islamic forms of expression that are revealed through the Chadoryes Al-Amirado Hijab or the Shaylaall of them apparently resulting from Islamic impositions.
Looking at the position of all the democratic political forces that were revolted by the decisions of the Taliban government, they cannot fail to consider that what is said in the text of the diploma is completely compatible with our Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The text develops what it considers to be public space – public roads, places open to the public, places where services accessible to citizens are provided. And there are also sporting events and demonstrations.
But aren’t there exceptions? Article 4 says what they are – health reasons, professional reasons, artistic activity, entertainment or advertising. Also planes, diplomatic facilities and places of worship. Exceptions include weather conditions, security reasons or other legally determined situations, such as pandemics.
The diploma innovates with regard to criminal provisions. Thus, threats, violence, embarrassment, abuse of authority or abuse of power, because of their sex, promoted by someone who forces one or more people to hide their face, are punished under the terms of criminal law and for non-compliance with articles 26 and 27 of the Constitution.
One of the questions that journalists and commentators have asked most is human rights. Is this writing in accordance with the Universal Declaration? Looking at the text discussed by Portuguese deputies and comparing it with the legislation in force in France, the first European country to approve diplomas on the subject, it can always be said that French law is much more comprehensive and has more prohibitions.
As the topic seems to be so peaceful, why are there lines drawn between left and right? The answer is simple – the initiative came from Chega and this party aims to promote cultural and religious wars.
Chega is not a party to recommend, but if this is the argument of the left then we are done. Was it not the Marxist left that considered religions as the “opium of the people”? Aren’t the left wingers rightly fighting for the liberation of minorities? Aren’t the left the ones who affirm women’s autonomy as a primary objective in today’s world?
This debate is not about religious freedom, but about religious imposition, about fanaticism that aims to eliminate cultures of tolerance. If we protect, as is our responsibility, women who are victims of violence, if we consider the acts committed by their partners as a public crime, how can we fail to take into account the cruelty of all kinds that women who use horoscope or niqab are subject?
Another objective is also present in this discussion – radicalizing society, raising trenches. Therefore, it is important to have good judgment, never leaving an initiative of this type without a counterpoint, always confirming the path of humanism, the pedagogy in the face of each problem. In this debate, the moderate party, which has always been the PS, was a cicada, missing yet another opportunity to assert its history. Instead of using the enemy’s arguments to defeat him, he argued so much that he won once again.
But the left didn’t want to see everything that the letter of the project authorizes and that is valuable.
The initiative will, from now on, allow the arrest and registration of all extreme right-wing protesters who walk around in groups with their faces covered and will enable the police to “take by the ear” the members of football cheerleaders, promoters of terror on the edges of cities, who present themselves as balaclava.
If the effect of the law may be little in terms of burcas e niqabsbecause in Portugal there will be very few women who circulate in public spaces with their faces covered, it will authorize law enforcement agents to carry out work that is important in the context of banditry.
Seeing a law through the face of its author is often a hasty attitude. Stopping and thinking about all the dimensions that the standards contain is the obligation of good politicians and other public agents.
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