QUOTE (user23 @ Jan 28 2010, 12:31 PM)
Not all Muslim women wear Burkas and those that do aren't all forced to do so.
Would you ban Christians from going to church on a Sunday because they're "forced" to do so by their religion?
There are many branches of Islam, and many different interpretations of how a "good" Muslim should behave. However, there is nothing in the Koran which states that a Muslim woman must be covered from head to foot, this is simply a very extreme interpretation/view/teaching of some Islamic clerics, in particular those who come from the Wahhabi Sunni sect of Islam. If we look at certain Islamic countries - Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Indonesia and even Iran, there is a very relaxed dress code for Muslim women, no insistence on the Burka or Chador/Hejab. We have to move our attention to countries which have been seen as our friends, to observe the strictest Islamic dress codes, and attitudes to women's rights - Saudi Arabia, some parts of Pakistan, Yemen, Kuwait, and of course Afghanistan.
The only reason why Muslim women wear the Burka, is because they have been instructed in extreme Islamic views from an early age, and it is all to do with the chauvinistic control of women by Muslim men. Within certain Muslim communities/families, there is no opportunity for dissent, because of the rigid rules being applied to the women.
We are talking about fear of violence, and of fear of exclusion from the family or community, which makes some Muslim women observe these outdated practices. There is no place for this in 21st Century Britain.