France Bans Face Veils

French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently ordered a bill to be submitted to parliament that bans Islamic face veils in all public places. This move came some time after the Belgian parliament took up a similar bill, whose voting took place on April 22. However, this issue is much more controversial in France , as they have a Muslim population of 5 million; the largest in Western Europe.

Hey, what happened to secularism? Religious tolerance ring a bell? They agreed to remove their face-covering veils for security purposes and identification, but why force them to expose their face and bodies when they dont feel comfortable doing so? Can you really fine someone for being modest?

Follow the links below for more insight into the situation:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/26/france.burqa.ban/index.html

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2010/01/26/bittermann.france.burqua.ban.cnn

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/04/france-ban-on-face-veils-will-apply-to-tourists-as-well.html

David Barsamian

David Barsamian is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer and lecturer. He is the founder, director and host of Alternative Radio, an hour long weekly talk show based in Boulder, Colorado, which broadcasts over 200 radio stations in the United States, Canada, Australia and several other countries. Barsamian lectures on U.S. foreign policy, corporate control, media, and propaganda. Barsamian has interviewed numerous notable figures including Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Lester Brown, Robert Fisk, Arundhati Roy, Joseph Stiglitz, Edward Said and George Galloway. Barsamian’s articles and interviews regularly appear in The Progressive, The Nation, and Z Magazine.

He is also the author of several books, including: Propaganda and the Public Mind: Conversations with Noam Chomsky; Eqbal Ahmad: Confronting Empire; and The Decline and Fall of Public Broadcasting; The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy; and louder than Bombs: Interviews from The Progressive Magazine.

Barsamian has recieved many prestigious awards for his work on alternative journalism. He was honored with the Media Education Award, the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Award and the Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. The Institute for Alternative Journalism also named him one of its Top Ten Media Heroes.

In 2007, Barsamian made a trip to Pakistan. He talked about the importance of independent media:

"Corporate media are largely weapons of mass distraction. Language is manipulated to manufacture consent and to limit the bounds of permissible thought (…) that's one reason I started Alternative Radio out of my house many years ago. You can't simply whine and complain. You need to come up with positive alternatives that give people hope."

Barsamian is a character worth reading about. He tells the truth as he sees it and asks brave questions that really make you wonder about political figures around the world.

I came across an interesting interview of Barsamian that shares his thoughts on media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHsJm5yW43w