Women To Sue In Challenge To Belgium's New Anti-Burqa Law

AFP reports that on Saturday, Belgium's ban on wearing coverings-- such as the burqa or niqab-- that hide the face in public took effect. (See prior posting.) A day earlier, two Muslim women who wear full veils announced (through their lawyer) that they would file suit in Belgium's Constitutional Court to challenge the new law as a discriminatory infringement of freedom of religion and expression. According to Reuters, one of the two plaintiffs is a convert to Islam who has worn the burqa for 13 years, and who successfully fought a ban on it that the Brussels region municipality of Etterbeek had imposed earlier.