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Merkel’s call for ban on burqa pure politics: Pundit

Wednesday, 07 December 2016 11:12 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 07 December 2016 11:12 AM ]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses delegates during her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party's congress in Essen, western Germany, on December 6, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for a legal ban on the Muslim full-face veil on the grounds that the German law must apply to everyone living in the country. However, the remarks have been denounced by many for restraining religious freedom and spreading anti-Islamic propaganda. There are concerns that such a ban may exacerbate Islamophobic tendencies among far-right extremist groups, who are already campaigning, sometimes violently, against Muslims and refugees in Germany.

Anthony Hall, editor-in-chief of American Herald Tribune, sees Merkel’s call for a ban on burqa as “pure politics.” He says the chancellor's shift in policy is a strategy meant to appease certain political factions.

“So Angela Merkel is trying to pander to the political mood of the time and show that she is against multiculturalism and sort of go along with this. [She is] using the niqab as a kind of symbol because it arouses obviously hostile attitudes, xenophobic attitudes. [She is] using this symbol to make political hay and try to get back in [the good] graces of her electorate,” he told Press TV on Wednesday.

He also opined that if a person wants to wear a veil to express her religious conviction, the “high road” would be to accept it, given the fact that the Europeans always talk about freedom of expression, freedom of dress and freedom of conscience.

Hall further dismissed as “inexplicable” Merkel’s comments that the opening of the borders had somehow happened accidentally, arguing that it was a very “cynical plan.”

According to the journalist, the government of Germany is not really sovereign; rather, it was put in place by the occupiers after World War II. The government in Berlin, he opined, is serving its foreign masters, which means that Angela Merkel is also a puppet .

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