Banning the burqa

LAST June, a few months after Chadian forces had crossed into Nigeria to fight the Islamist insurgents of Boko Haram, two suicide-bombers detonated their belts in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital, killing more than 30 people. Two days later Chad’s government banned the wearing of the burqa, the Muslim woman’s covering that hides even the eyes. Henceforth, said the prime minister, security forces could “go into the markets… seize all the burqas on sale and burn them”. Those spotted in such “camouflage” would be “arrested, tried and sentenced after summary proceedings.” Heavy-handed as that sounds, several other sub-Saharan governments have followed suit. A month after Chad’s ban, Cameroon did the same in its northernmost region following suicide-bombings by people clad in burqas. Now the ban has been extended to five of Cameroon’s ten provinces, including its two biggest cities. Niger’s government has banned the garment in Diffa, a southern region that has also been hit by Boko Haram. And late last year Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim, said that a ban even on the hijab, which shrouds a woman’s head and chest but leaves her face on show, may be necessary if bombings persist.

Even countries unharmed by Islamist terror are banning the burqa. Last year Congo-Brazzaville barred it in public places to “prevent any act of terrorism”. And Senegal, which the French security service says is vulnerable to an attack, is pondering a ban, too. Only one west African country seems to be moving in the other direction. The Gambia’s eccentric dictator, Yahya Jammeh, who recently declared his nation to be Islamic, told all female government workers to cover their hair.