A woman under her burqa walks down a street in the old city of Kabul in 2009. (Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images)German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière proposed a partial ban on full veils for Muslim women Friday at a conference discussing new security measures following a spate of attacks in the country. Belgium, France and the Netherlands previously imposed full or partial burqa bans. In an interview published Friday by the local newspaper network RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland, German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed her interior minister and argued that wearing a burqa would inhibit Muslim immigrant women from assimilating into German society. [Europe’s migration crisis is just beginning]Yet critics said that by suggesting a partial ban, the interior minister was trying merely to smooth over divisions within his and Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party on the issue.

Source: Washington Post August 19, 2016 11:27 UTC