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Williams said that the government should not become a "licensing authority" to decide which religious symbols are acceptable to be displayed in public.
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LONDON — The Archbishop of Canterbury warned on Friday, October 27, that a British ban of Muslim women's face-veil (niqab) and other religious insignia would be "politically dangerous".
"The ideal of a society where no visible public signs of religion would be seen -- no crosses round necks, no sidelocks, turbans or veils -- is a politically dangerous one," Rowan Williams wrote in an article in The Times.
A debate has been raging in Britain over the veil after cabinet minister and former foreign secretary Jack Straw called on Muslim women to remove their veil.
Straw's call has drawn backing from a host of cabinet ministers, with Prime Minister Tony Blair considering the veil as a "mark of separation" between the Muslim minority and British society.
Commenting on the ongoing veil debate, Williams said that the "proverbial visitor from Mars might have imagined that the greatest immediate threat to British society was religious war."
Williams, who recently returned from a two-week visit to China, said that the government should not become a "licensing authority" to decide which religious symbols are acceptable to be displayed in public.
A British Muslim teacher has been suspended for refusing to remove her veil while on the job.
And a female check-in worker at Heathrow Airport was "forced" to take unpaid leave after refusing to conceal her cross under a cravat.
Lord Chief Justice Phillips of Worth Matravers, the most senior judge in England and Wales, has called for protecting the human rights of Muslims.
Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.
As for the face veil, the majority of Muslim scholars believe that a woman is not obliged to cover her face or hands.
Scholars, however, believe that it is up to women to decide whether to take on the veil.
Calm
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"We just need to hold our nerve a bit and stop too many pronouncements from too many people," Blair said.
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London's top police officer has also called for calm over the raging veil debate.
"We just need to hold our nerve a bit and stop too many pronouncements from too many people," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Ian Blair as telling members of the Metropolitan Police Authority, the body in charge of the capital's police force, on Thursday, October 26.
Blair said that the veil controversy has caused to increasingly victimize the Muslim women.
"I accept the obvious conclusion that there are considerable tensions as a result of this. I think the important thing however is to make sure that we keep our nerve," he said.
Physical and verbal attacks against British Muslims in general, and veiled women in particular, have been on the rise since the anti-veil statements.
Echoing Ian Blair's views, Tariq Ramadan, a visiting Muslim professor at Oxford University, told an inter-faith conference in London on Thursday that some "politicians are using this (issue) because they have an agenda to push."
He claimed that both in Britain, and Europe more broadly, there was a movement to "change the law by nurturing fears".
Earlier this month, senior British MPs and politicians accused ministers of "chasing votes" and seeking political gains by the continuing focus on Muslim issues, warning that this would only play well into the hands of the far right and extremists.
The warned that recent comments on the Muslim face veil and integration by ministers were exacerbating tensions.
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