Roundup: Lithuania debates whether to ban burqas

Ideas to ban Muslim women garment burqa in Lithuania have been met with stormy public debate recently.

Arturas Paulauskas, chairman of the parliamentary National and Defense Committee, spoke up on the issue on Thursday.

"It is no secret that refugees who are to be received in Lithuania will be of different religions and beliefs," Paulauskas said in a statement.

Therefore Lithuania should adopt the practice of France, Estonia and other European countries and "pre-empt any misunderstandings while regulating at least wearing of national clothes, burqas, in public spaces," he added.

The politician was speaking in the run-up to the arrival of a few hundred of refugees from the Middle East. According to Paulauskas, every country introduces its own rules that migrants will have to follow.

A ban over the publicly wearing of face-covering garments would be one of many precautionary measures in order to ensure public security after refugees arrive in the Baltic country, Paulauskas explained.

He also stressed that neighboring Estonia and Latvia have started the same debate.

"These discussions are unavoidable, because issue of refugees is very important; we can remember French case where debates whether to ban burqas or not were extremely furious," Paulauskas argued.

In case the government does not initiate such legal amendments, Paulauskas claimed he would do that himself.

However, his idea was met as premature by local human rights activists, analysts and the country's high officials.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said the integration of refugees is a more important issue than public wearing of burqas.

"If some issues emerge in the long term, they will be addressed," Spokeswoman Evelina Butkute-Lazdauskiene said, citing the Prime Minister's opinion.

In Butkevicius' words, the government's decisions are based on Lithuania's international commitments in the field of human rights and religious freedom.

Saulius Skvernelis, the country's Interior Minister, echoed the Prime Minister's stance saying that situation would depend on refugees' willingness to integrate in the country, BNS news agency Baltic News Service reported.

"I hope that the people we take in will want to integrate with our society in a faster and simpler way, accepting the ways of conduct and other standards, rules and lifestyles that are acceptable here," Skvernelis said in a comment emailed to BNS.

"If this is their stance, we will not have to have legal regulations of their clothing details and other things," he added.

Egdunas Racius, Islam culture and politics expert and professor at Vytautas Magnus University, said in an interview with ELTA news agency that the wish to prepare Lithuania for potential challenges is welcomed, however, he stressed that Syrian refugees who will reach Lithuania next year most probably will not have any problems about not wearing head veils.

"The majority of refugees who will come from Syria are undoubtedly not that conservative," Racius said.

During European Union's negotiations last month, it was agreed that within the period of two years Lithuania will accept 325 people in need of international protection, mostly Syrians. It is a part of the European efforts to address the Mediterranean refugee crisis.

France, home to about five million Muslims, was the first European country to ban the public use of veils, both face-covering niqabs and full-body burqas, in 2011.

France made it illegal for anyone to cover their face with anything that obscures their identity in a public place. The similar ban was introduced in Belgium the same year.

A few other European countries are grappling with the issue as well. Last week, Estonian Social Security Minister Margus Tsahkna made a similar proposal to ban the wearing of burqas and other garments concealing the face in the public. Endit