THE OBSERVER: Muslim woman says that she will not accept pressure from mosques or state over 'burqa ban' that begins on 11 AprilKenza Drider, a respectable mother-of-four, will leave her home in Avignon's Place de la Résistance on Monday with the intention of committing a crime. If the police are waiting for her – and they have had more than enough warning – she will be cautioned, perhaps be asked to accompany officers to the local station, possibly face a fine and, perhaps, will leave with a criminal record.
It is unlikely she will end up in jail, but who knows? It is a risk she is willing to take. Drider is not only determined to become a miscreant; she sees it as her absolute duty to do so.
This 32-year-old French housewife has become the face of the country's "burqa brigade", the women in France who cover themselves from head to toe in full veils. She will fall foul of a law that comes into effect on Monday 11 April tomorrow and forbids French citizens from covering their faces in public places; despite the ban's deliberately general wording, there is no doubt that its target is very specific: Muslim women.
Drider's first offence will be to set foot inside Avignon's TGV rail station where she is due to take a train to Paris. For this she risks a €150 fine and, if she repeats the offence, being sent on a "citizenship course".
"I will be going about my business in my full veil as I have for the last 12 years and nothing and nobody is going to stop me," she declares, swathed in the material she refuses to take off even while speaking to a female journalist in her own home.
Like most of the women concerned by this law, Drider wears a niqab veil that reveals only her eyes, as opposed to a burqa, the full body covering worn by Afghan women. » | Kim Willsher | Sunday, April 10, 2011
