The Australian - ITALY has banned Islamic burqas under tough terrorism laws that provide two-year jail terms and E2000 ($3200) fines for anyone caught covering their face in a public place.
The counter-terrorism package, passed by Italy's parliament yesterday, doubles the existing penalty for wearing a burqa or chador -- traditional robes worn by Muslim women to cover their faces -- or full-faced helmets or balaclavas in public.
Police can extract DNA samples without a suspect's consent, detain them for 24 hours without a lawyer present, and deport foreigners suspected of terrorism under the new legislation. Soldiers involved in counter-terrorism have been given the same stop-and-search powers.
The changes, approved in a rare show of bipartisanship, came as Italian police arrested a fugitive hunted by British police over the bungled bombing attempt in London on July 21.
Wow.
Jeff Goldstein responds:
I think it’s fair to say that reality, in the form of decapitated British double deckers and twisted metal subway cars buried beneath Kings Cross station, is raining like shrapnel over immigration-happy Old Europe, which is finally beginning to look around and realize that those unassimilated Muslim communities entrenched in their cities pose more of threat than the hamfisted Republican cowboy in the White House.
Ironically, there’s no way in hell we’d be able to adopt a similar measure here in the US—we had enough trouble, legally-speaking, getting a Florida woman to lift her burqua for a driver’s license photo—and I think we’re better for it, ultimately. This is, after all, the ultimate in active profiling, and while I strongly support criminal profiling based on age and ethnicity, I’d find this measure draconian were someone to suggest we implement it here in the states.
Then again, our Muslim population is far better integrated than those in Europe, where “multiculturalism” has been an article of faith—and Europeans are simply reacting to having their eyes opened to the subsidized radicalism that’s been gathering strength and numbers in their midst.
Read the whole thing.