A Moroccan woman who reportedly frightened her children’s school friends by wearing full Islamic dress has agreed to unveil her face when she enters the nursery school building, reports ANSA.
Children at the school, in Sonnino, a town of 7,000 inhabitants in the Province of Latina [Lazio] called the woman the “black teacher” and their mothers requested the removal of her veil so that they could see who she was and get to know her.
Finally a meeting between the parents, the Head of the school, the Mayor of Sonnino and the Moroccan woman and her husband, the local Imam, was called and a compromise was reached: the woman will remove her face covering once inside the school. The Imam was careful to point out that his wife does not wear the burqa, as has been reported, but the niqab, which leaves the eyes uncovered.
Whilst there is relief in Sonnino that a solution to the situation has been found, the “burqa debate” in Italy continues: a group of young Italian women in Sonnino demonstrated in favour of the woman’s right to wear traditional dress whereas elsewhere the case is being cited as a reason to ban it.
The politician Isabella Bertolini, of Silvio Berlusconi’s Pdl Party, says that the burqa must be banned everywhere by law and that the concessions which Italian institutions are making to political correctness are damaging Italian society.
Carolina Lussana of the anti-immigration Northern League has said that the fact that the woman will continue to cover her face in the street proves that a law banning this type of clothing in public places is necessary. She added that anyone who forces a woman to wear the burqa or similar clothing should also be punished.
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