Veil fine
May 4, 2010
Italian police have fined a woman 500 euros ($650) for wearing an Islamic face veil.
Local police in the northwestern city of Novara stopped a 26-year old in the street as she was walking with her husband.
The woman, originally from Tunisia, was wearing a black veil known as the niqab, which covers the face but leaves the eyes visible.
Concealed identity
While there is no specific legislation on the burqa, wearing a facial covering public - except during special occasions such as carnival - has been banned in Italy since 1975.
"City police ticketed her last night and she will have to pay a 500 euro fine," Novara municipal police official Mauro Franzinelli told the AFP news agency.
Novara, in Italy's northeastern Piedmont region, is a stronghold of the anti-immigration Northern League, a key party in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government.
The fine is a first in Italy, but the latest in a wave of burqa-related backlashes across Europe. Last week, Belgium became the first country to pass a national ban on the burqa, and France's national assembly will soon debate a bill that would ban face veils in many public places.
Germany's interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said similiar measures in Germany were "unnecessary," in an interview with the daily Leipziger Volkszeitung.
smh/afp/Reuters
Editor: Rob Turner