Zunera Ishaq on why she fought to wear a niqab during citizenship ceremony: ‘A personal attack on me and Muslim women’

Hard to understand but clearly confident in expressing her views:

There are a few things Zunera Ishaq wants to set straight about the veil she wears in public.

Nobody is forcing her to cover up, she says. It is a “personal choice” and a way to assert her identity and show her devotion to her Muslim faith.

There is nothing oppressive, either, about wearing a niqab. If anything, it is a “symbol of empowerment.”

This conviction emboldened the former high school teacher from Pakistan to postpone attending her citizenship ceremony last year and go toe-to-toe with the Harper government over its policy forbidding the wearing of facial coverings during the swearing-in part of the ceremony.

“I gathered the courage and decided to speak out,” said the 29-year-old Mississauga, Ont., resident in an extended conversation with the National Post this weekend. “I decided to raise my voice so that I can challenge this policy, which was a personal attack on me and Muslim women like me.”

Of course, someone claiming the right, male or female, to appear naked in a citizenship ceremony, given their religious beliefs, would be the mirror image of the right to be fully covered up.

Zunera Ishaq on why she fought to wear a niqab during citizenship ceremony: ‘A personal attack on me and Muslim women’ | National Post.