Bulgarian town bans women from wearing full-face veils

Local government of Pazardzhik adopts measure to fine those from the Muslim minority who defy the ban.

A number of European states have taken measures to restrict the wearing of the niqab [File:Reuters]

The central Bulgarian town of Pazardzhik has banned the wearing of full-face veils in public in a move the local government said would prevent tension among communities and boost security.

The ban introduced on Wednesday, the first of its kind in the Balkan country, was backed from politicians across the political spectrum in the town of some 70,000 people, where wearing full-face veils had become common among some women from the Muslim Roma minority.

“I am tired to hear that Pazardzhik is the town of the burqas. We want to say aloud that we are not that, but a town of responsible people and we will be associated with other achievements,” Mayor Todor Popov told national radio.

Muslims make up about 12 percent of Bulgaria’s 7.2 million population and most belong to a centuries-old community, largely ethnic Turks, among whom full-face veils are not common.

Popov said fines would be imposed on anyone who defies the ban, which police said was needed because the veils, which cover all but the eyes, hampered quick identification.

Part of the Roma minority practises a conservative form of Islam and its women have started wearing full-face veils in recent years, angering nationalists.

Many Bulgarians are concerned that the refugee inflows into Europe may pose a threat to their predominantly Orthodox Christian culture and help radicalise part of the country’s long-established Muslim minority.

ISIL trial

In February, 13 men – most from Pazardhik’s Roma minority – went on trial charged with helping people join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group in Syria, propagating an extremist ideology and inciting to war.

Earlier this month, the nationalist Patriotic Front coalition, which backs the government, proposed a nationwide ban on full-face veils, arguing that such clothing was not typical for Bulgarian Muslims.

The nationalists argued that such veils presented a national security risk and the issue had grown in importance following the violent Islamist attacks in Paris and Brussels.