New
Zealand politician says burqa-wearers should go home
WELLINGTON
- A New Zealand politician has said Muslim women wearing
burqas could be crooks hiding guns and should go back to where
they came from, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
 Bob
Clarkson, a back-bench lawmaker for the conservative opposition
National Party, said they should not wear the full-cover veil if
they wanted to “fit into our country.”
If
they insisted on wearing their traditional dress, they should
”go back to Islam, go back to Iraq or go back wherever they
want to,” he told the Dominion Post.
“They
must accept our New Zealand values. I mean that’s all there is
to it. If they want to keep everything exactly as they want it,
go back to their own country.
“In
my mind, to a certain extent, they’re hiding. Who’s under
that gown? How do we know there’s not a crook with a gun
hiding under a burqa?”
Clarkson
insisted he was tolerant of all religions. But his comments were
dubbed “ignorant and arrogant” by Javed Khan, president of
the Federation of Islamic Associations, which represents the
40,000 Muslims in New Zealand.
“Why
is he picking on Muslims wearing scarves and burqas?” he
asked. “Would he have any problems with nuns wearing the same
type of clothes, head covers and long skirts?
“Would
he have problems with the Sikhs wearing turbans? When he says
that people should fit into the country, what does that mean?
That they should go in their bikinis?”
Clarkson’s
boss, Don Brash, told the paper the National Party was not
interested in what people wore, provided they shared New
Zealand’s “bedrock values” such as religious and personal
freedom and sexual equality.
DPA
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