Austria Bans the burqa - immigrants are also obliged to sign an integration contract.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/austria-to-ban-burqas-starting-in-october/

VIENNA, Austria — New Austrian legislation came into force Friday that will ban the full-face Islamic veil in public places from October 1.


The outlawing of the burqa or other clothing concealing the face follows similar moves in other countries in the European Union, starting with France in 2011.

In Austria, people who break the new law could be fined up to 150 euros ($16, according to the legislation approved by parliament in May and signed into law by the president this week.

Other measures include a clampdown on distributing extremist material, and immigrants being obliged to sign an “integration contract.”

A 12-month “integration program” will include courses in “values” and the German language. Failure to attend can result in cuts to social security payments.

The legislation was hammered out by the centrist government amid strong support for the far-right and the arrival of 90,000 asylum-seekers since 2015.

The “grand coalition” under Chancellor Christian Kern collapsed last month and early elections were called for October 15.

The far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), whose candidate came close to winning the largely ceremonial presidency last year, is riding high in opinion polls ahead of the vote.

 

[AnOminous]

I'm glad they're banning it. Anybody whining about the ban can go over there and protest on behalf of those poor, totally-not-willing-to-kill-you-for-being-a-degenerate-westerner, muslim women.

Better, though.

Ban white women who support Islamic oppression.

Seriously.

What the

FUCK
FUCK
FUCK

is wrong with you that you're okay with rape and oppression so long as it's Islamic?

 

[pozilei]

I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand banning an item of (female) clothing is really creepy and draconian. There's probably a dad or husband urging her to wear it and a society urging her to not wear it - what's this poor woman supposed to do? Plus: no one really seems to know how many of burqa/niqab wearing women there even are in Austria. I've read the number 150 but no one seems to know where it came from or how accurate it is. Are there more? Less? Niqabs are like Sasquatch - a friend's cousin totally saw one once but there's no proof. Which kind of makes the whole thing a dumb law.

On the other hand I'm kinda glad they finally put their foot down on the whole integration thing. We've seen in other countries that if you just let it slide and hope they'll just naturally blend in it'll probably just lead to parallel societies/self-ghettoization (especially if the immigrants arrived in large numbers in a short time) and then everyone is shocked that people who've lived in the country for 10 years still don't speak the language or know they can divorce their husband if he beats them.

 

[friedshrimp]

Better, though.

Ban white women who support Islamic oppression.

Seriously.

What the

FUCK
FUCK
FUCK

is wrong with you that you're okay with rape and oppression so long as it's Islamic?

Exotic brown people can do no wrong! All those charges of homophobia and sexism are just right-wing fake news. We shouldn't change their culture because that's white imperialism, uwu

 

[Ineedahero]

But that's where it should be combated. Islam is only going to get its shit together if you make it clear while Allah rules the next life man rules this one. And a religion where women are second-class citizens and any kind of degeneracy deserves corporal punishment has no place in civilized government.

How do you do that though? It's unconstitutional to tell someone they can't practice their religion however they like, and while Europe might not have the first amendment, they do have similar laws. I think shit like this is them grasping at straws, looking to restrict salafism any way they can.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

It's unconstitutional to tell someone they can't practice their religion however they like

Yes and no. Freedom of religion is a human right. But if the Quran (or Bible, or Dianetics, or whatever) says you can smack your wife around if she displeases you then you don't get to just do it and get away with it. I think even extremely liberal understandings of Freedom of Religion have room for saying your religious beliefs don't give you the right to take away the rights of others. Calling Islam out on its awful track record for that is I think a start.

This really isn't something the government can fix and I don't think it should try. Call it wishful thinking but Islam's best chance for integrating in the civilized world is the Muslim community itself. If the international Islamic world can get itself together, stop acting so against basic liberal democracy, and stop playing the victim every time a Snackbar pulls some bullshit like Orlando or Manchester or London or Paris then I think a lot of these problems will stop.

 

[cuddle striker]

You can make stoning someone a capital crime and give them the modern death penalty. Basically, apply our modern laws to the people acting on their violent religious ideas. As said earlier, arrest the guy whose god says he can slap his wife around.

You can ban FGM.

You can state that in your nation eyes must not be covered while in public except for safety reasons like helmets etc.

You can regulate so that all children must attend a (US definition) public school for at least some time. That they must all, regardless of sex, be educated and able to read and have basic knowledge of the law of the country they live in.

You could do all these things, but there is such a mountain of resistance in some places by religious extremists who are NOT Muslim, that you can't pass them. Christians want to home school. Mormons want their women covered and owned and illiterate. Orthodox Jews are similarly controlling of women's lives and education. Extremists in all the more popular religions have some political clout.

There are parallels, legally, to all these things in each religion that's powerful in a lot of the west. We can't force people to integrate without forcing those people into the modern world too.

This is what actual True and Honest feminists mean when they talk about "patriarchy", they're not talking about catcalls and dick pics. They're talking about religious institutions that are really stone-age in their treatment and perception of women, holding too much political power.

As long as we allow other extremists to opt out, it's going to be hard to get Muslims who are extremists to join in on western culture.

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

You had me until:

You can regulate so that all children must attend a (US definition) public school for at least some time. That they must all, regardless of sex, be educated and able to read and have basic knowledge of the law of the country they live in.

It is socially responsible for governments to provide this service. It's socially responsible to take advantage of that service. But mandating it? That's tyranny, plain and simple. People should be free to raise their kids however they want, and if they disagree with their government they have every right to not let that government into their children's' education. If the parents' actions don't put their kids at direct risk of bodily harm then the government is out of line intervening.

Education is important but it's not up for the state to tell you you're educating someone wrong and then intervene. You don't combat extremism with more extremism.

 

[cuddle striker]

You had me until:


It is socially responsible for governments to provide this service. It's socially responsible to take advantage of that service. But mandating it? That's tyranny, plain and simple. People should be free to raise their kids however they want, and if they disagree with their government they have every right to not let that government into their children's' education. If the parents' actions don't put their kids at direct risk of bodily harm then the government is out of line intervening.

Education is important but it's not up for the state to tell you you're educating someone wrong and then intervene. You don't combat extremism with more extremism.

that's the thing though. it's about more than the education. it's about meeting and interacting with all kinds of people you will live with later in your life, in the community.

learning that there are people unlike you in this world is the socialization that happens in early school years. kids that don't get this ends up isolated within their parent's cultural dead end, and have a hard time when they do finally have to deal with the real world around them.

mandating that both sexes have an equal education would be a massive change for a lot of Muslims, most especially the extremists. this is the only way to ensure that they even teach the girls to read, you see.

mandating that you must allow your children to learn elementary school math, reading and such is not that extreme. (I wouldn't say to mandate an entire kindergarten-college age education, just elementary school for at least some years.)

 

[Replicant Sasquatch]

mandating that you must allow your children to learn elementary school math, reading and such is not that extreme.)

That's already basically a thing. Most jobs require at least a high school diploma or GED. You can't get that if you don't have a basic understanding of reading, writing, or math. And the government provides free access to that if you want it. Free basic education is something governments should provide. But in most of the Muslim world that's not offered. And when it is, not to girls. There's a stark contrast between offering it and forcing it.

If a young Muslim immigrant girl wants to go to school but her parents won't let her then I think outside observers should go to bat for her. But I don't like the idea of the state going "We're gonna force you to educate your kid our way because we think your religion will fuck her up".

 

[cuddle striker]

That's already basically a thing. Most jobs require at least a high school diploma or GED. You can't get that if you don't have a basic understanding of reading, writing, or math. And the government provides free access to that if you want it. Free basic education is something governments should provide. But in most of the Muslim world that's not offered. And when it is, not to girls. There's a stark contrast between offering it and forcing it.

If a young Muslim immigrant girl wants to go to school but her parents won't let her then I think outside observers should go to bat for her. But I don't like the idea of the state going "We're gonna force you to educate your kid our way because we think your religion will fuck her up".

these girls will grow into women who aren't allowed outside alone. not being able to get a job isn't a deterrent to the people keeping their daughters ignorant.

the families themselves will keep the girls home and send the boys to school. there isn't any question of the girls ever getting a chance to "want" to go to school. Nobody outside the family would know about that anyway.

It's a real thing.

 

[BadaBadaBoom]

I seriously can't wait for the day the world finally gets its shit together and unites to put an end to this medieval bullshit cult masquerading as a culture. Laws like this may seem arbitrary and pointless, but they send a good message to zealots that the rest of the world isn't putting up with this anymore. Hopefully over time the less extreme members of these cultures migrate to these undoubtedly more peaceful countries and we can finally separate the innocent nutjobs from the exploding ones.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

They're both very quick ways to die, as ways to die go.

Most ways humans die are extremely painful and go on for months or even years, with vastly diminishing quality of life along the way.

I recommend this book if you don't know how most humans die.

https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Die-Reflections-Chapter/dp/0679742441

It makes a slaughterhouse look humane.

That's neat and all, but it doesn't really pertain to humane slaughter vs halal. When you compare the two the "humane" method is clearly better for the animal and more efficient. On one hand you have an animal that's dead in seconds, on the other you've got one that may take minutes to bleed out and will put up a fight in the meantime. Easy choice.

 

[Saney]

That's neat and all, but it doesn't really pertain to humane slaughter vs halal. When you compare the two the "humane" method is clearly better for the animal and more efficient. On one hand you have an animal that's dead in seconds, on the other you've got one that may take minutes to bleed out and will put up a fight in the meantime. Easy choice.

As someone who works with livestock, I have to say: The cattle have it coming. If anything, they're getting off too easy.

 

[cuddle striker]

That's neat and all, but it doesn't really pertain to humane slaughter vs halal. When you compare the two the "humane" method is clearly better for the animal and more efficient. On one hand you have an animal that's dead in seconds, on the other you've got one that may take minutes to bleed out and will put up a fight in the meantime. Easy choice.

most humans die of illness or accident. nearly all. in the West we are relatively humane about pain relief for the terminally ill, the more advanced places allow euthanasia.

As someone who works with livestock, I have to say: The cattle have it coming. If anything, they're getting off too easy.

this applies to people as well, in my opinion.

 

[Secret Asshole]

The thing is that male relatives often force the Burqa on the women. I think its a fucking disgusting, backwards, repressive garment that has no place in the West. Hijabs are fine and a lot of women wear them out of choice. But they aren't the Burqa or Niquab. I'd ban both. Fuck your culture, its garbage. Take it and go live in your shithole nation if you don't like it. And if you're a convert, fuck yourself and go over to someplace that wants that shit. We don't.

 

[melty]

That's already basically a thing. Most jobs require at least a high school diploma or GED. You can't get that if you don't have a basic understanding of reading, writing, or math. And the government provides free access to that if you want it. Free basic education is something governments should provide. But in most of the Muslim world that's not offered. And when it is, not to girls. There's a stark contrast between offering it and forcing it.

If a young Muslim immigrant girl wants to go to school but her parents won't let her then I think outside observers should go to bat for her. But I don't like the idea of the state going "We're gonna force you to educate your kid our way because we think your religion will fuck her up".

I've been hearing far too many stories lately about Muslim families who do let their girls go to school, but then randomly haul them back off to Shitfuckistan for a "surprise trip" to get fgm or arranged marriage.

 

[AnOminous]

That's neat and all, but it doesn't really pertain to humane slaughter vs halal. When you compare the two the "humane" method is clearly better for the animal and more efficient. On one hand you have an animal that's dead in seconds, on the other you've got one that may take minutes to bleed out and will put up a fight in the meantime. Easy choice.

Compared to other things we do to animals that are legal, and how we treat each other, it simply isn't cruel enough to be banned literally for the sole reason that it is a religious rather than a secular practice. The entire industry is cruel enough that it's silly to focus on the last couple minutes. It's a general legal principle that the rights of humans are given greater weight than those of livestock, and so long as cruelty isn't the sole purpose of a practice, it's considered acceptable. How veal or foie de gras is produced, or fur for that matter, is legal even though it is inarguably cruel.

Practices no more cruel than these don't have less legal protection just because they're religious in nature.

That's why a burqa ban wouldn't fly in the U.S. If it would be legal to wear things like this as part of a costume or for some secular reason, it wouldn't be constitutional to ban it literally because it's religious. Clothing, including masks, are generally considered at least partly expressive in nature, and can only be banned under limited circumstances. For instance, some states ban going around masked at night for the purpose of criminal activity or intimidation, i.e. laws directed against the Klan. Even these generally have to be tailored narrowly to ban only the conduct that can be legitimately outlawed.

I'm not sure what limits the ECHR puts on laws singling out people for special regulation based on their religion, but they certainly have such restrictions. I'd expect a challenge to this both under the laws of the countries in question and at the European Court of Human Rights, assuming the EU doesn't go entirely kablooie.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

I'm still pretty stupefied that these idiots think superficial bullshit, mostly aimed at harassing women, is going to fix anything.

It's not the shit that chicks wear that is blowing people up. It's the shit that DUDES DO.

Women were used as suicide bombers multiple times by the Chechens in Russia.

 

[AnOminous]

Women were used as suicide bombers multiple times by the Chechens in Russia.

If that was common, that might be a national security justification for banning any bulky items of clothing that could be used to hide explosives. It isn't that common, though.