New South Wales police gain power to remove burqas

Police in the Australian state of New South Wales have been given the power to demand the removal of burqas and face covering in order to identify a suspected criminal.

Open access

The move was approved on Monday, following a recent case of a Muslim woman who was acquitted after a judge decided she could not be identified because she was wearing a burqa.

Carnita Matthews was last year sentenced to six months in jail for falsely accusing police officers of forcibly trying to remove her burqa after she was stopped for a traffic offence. The sentence was droppped last month after the judge said he could not be sure it was Matthews who made the complaint because officers were unable to see her face.

“I don’t care whether a person is wearing a motorcycle helmet, a burqa, niqab, face veil or anything else, the police should be allowed to require those people to make their identification clear,” state premier Barry O’Farrell said.

The previous law stated that police had the power to ask a woman to remove their face veil in the case of a serious investigation but not on routine matters.

France this year passed a law banning the wearing of face-covering in public.