To ask how many times you have seen anyone wearing a niqab (full face veil revealing eyes) or burqa (full face veil with mesh cover for eyes)?

Very few, maybe one every few months, live in Manchester.

So what are you saying you want to see laws that restrict your personal freedom as we see in some countries in the middle east? Or just laws that impact personal freedom of others?

A lot i wouldnt be able to say exact amount, also south London.

No, however if I was in the middle east I wouldn't go about in a bikini top and shorts like I would I countries it acceptable in...

No, that's idiot logic. The first doesn't affect other people, the second one does. Eg someone has the right to be Jewish, that doesn't give someone else the right to make anti semitic comments to them. If your actions negatively affect other people then no, you're not free to do as you wish. And before you claim that someone dressing a certain way affects you, consider whether it actually causes you any harm, or whether it's just something you don't like because of your what assumptions you're making about that person.

When I go to view a church abroad I cover my shoulders
That's completely different you are visiting a specific religious building you aren't covering your shoulders once you leave there walking the streets are you?

I work in Cambridge too and regularly see them.

And while I was not commenting on a ban or not, I disagree that just because things are normal in another culture they shouldn't be banned here

When I go to view a church abroad I cover my shoulders if asked as that is their culture. I don't understand the view that people living here shouldn't adopt our culture

If everyone has the right to wear what they want, surely everyone also has the right to express their views on what people wear? Freedom all round, surely

A few weeks ago, I had blood taken by a phlebotomist who was wearing a niqab. She didn't seem to have had a problem getting a job and participating in society.

She asked if I could hear ok, and explained that she always asked so that she could remove it if a patient needed to lip read.

A lot of it is cultural - I see a lot of Somali grannies wearing it. They don’t really leave the house much, and when they do they are fully covered. They won’t be covered up at home.

I have also seen some of these self-same grannies shouting abuse at their sons and throwing jugs of water at them (in hospital) - definitely not cowed by men. And absolutely nothing to suggest they hold extremist religious views.

But UK society isn't just one culture, it's multi-cultural. And people should be able to wear what they like, according to whichever culture they regard as theirs.

As long as a woman is freely choosing to wear a niqab or a burqa, that's fine imo.

Would it need to be a ban though, a law specifying what women could wear - or could you just specify you needed to be served by someone you could lip read from?

I used to train at a combat sport gym where we had a women's class that a lot of women who wore religious clothing attended, mainly abayas, some would cover the lower part of their faces in public. I got the impression it was quite freeing, in that they weren't subject to the expectation to look desirable to men, eg they might be into fashion for what they enjoyed wearing underneath but it was for them, no one else. In a society that focuses a lot of women's looks, 'opting out' can be a bit of an F you I imagine. I certainly didn't get the impression that any of the women were doing it to please someone else, they were all pretty strong characters.

I don't think there is a single woman who would choose to cover herself up to her eyes. That's the culture she is living in that makes her do it.

I don't have any patience for patriarchal abuse. See also FGM, abortion bans, traveller girls leaving school early to learn to be housewives etc.

This is where I am too. I would genuinely be delighted if a simple legal ban would give women more agency and choice, which is surely the objective? but honestly I don't think it would.

I too would like to see face coverings of any type (whether niquab, masks, etc) disallowed in public facing services roles, on access/disability//communication grounds. I have some hearing loss and face coverings muffle sound; if i can't see the person's face, of if their mouth is covered, I can't reliably understand what they are saying.

no I’m not literally saying that.

Are you literally saying that every Muslim woman is being forced to wear a burkha, that every woman we see is abused and that 0% of women would wear it by choice or belief in the religious requirement?

I don’t believe that anyone should be forced into religious practices against their will, and accusing me of that demonstrates a complete lack of ability to see beyond a limited scope that fits your narrative.

I feel exactly the same, @Growlybear83 .

There have been days when I've looked so rough I've almost felt like wearing one myself...

But a woman wearing niqab or a burkha (and all other variants of covering) is expressing Faith in her Deity and her cultural heritage, a bloke in a balaclava is - outside him being sat at a lake at 5am surrounded by boilies and groundbait - is expressing that he doesn't want to be picked up on face recognition/identifiable on CCTV, he's currently up to something illegal or that everybody around him should know that they should be scared of him.

My ex kicked off that he'd been told to take off his crash helmet in a bank when there was a woman wearing a niqab in the queue. Seriously? The odds of a 5'1" woman who probably weighed about 7 stone whipping out a sawn off shotgun and robbing the place is somewhat lower than that of a 6'5" bodybuilder in full black leathers and lid with an illegally tinted visor - if nothing else, they could see more of her than anybody could of him.

In any case, his main objection was that as a man, he had a right to look at women and the outline of their bodies - and they were insulting him by suggesting that he had no such entitlement and preventing him from doing so.

I couldn't put a number on it, but I saw plenty when I lived in south London, especially when I was working just off Oxford Street.

Since I moved to Sussex, the only times I've seen a woman in a niqab or a burka are when I've been at an airport.

I'm in East Anglia too and I've not ever seen one in Cambridge. And I work there.

A ban is going to cause more problems than it resolves. Unless there's evidence that criminals are going around in Islamic dress robbing banks and mugging people, leave it alone.

I respect freedom of religion and to let others live their life as they choose, but face covering and niqabs are not ok. It goes way beyond what is prescribed by the Quran (to dress modestly), it’s an extremist, misogynist, and sexist practice.
I wouldn’t ban it because you would only punish the victims and you can’t change social norms by law only.
But I would force every imam in the country to publicly denounce this abuse, disavow the practice, and remind everyone it’s up to women to choose for themselves. I would also offer support and intervention for women and young girls forced to wear it.

Only a handful of times in Birmingham and I don't go there often. Never saw it when I lived in North Manchester.

I am not keen on banning things like this, but equally not keen on the chances of people being forced to wear such things against their will either.

My inclination is to think this is not a 'me' problem, people who wish to wear them can get on with it and those being forced to do so against their will will have to deal with that however they can, making use of the available resources like anyone else being abused by a husband/partner.

I'm in Scotland and occasionally see them in Glasgow (mostly the south side).

Conflicted about an outright ban. I could see the argument in a ban for anyone working in a public facing role - not on cultural grounds but rather disability. The incidence of hearing loss in the UK is now estimated to be around 1 in 3 (used to be 1 in 7). Obviously this figure is skewed by an ageing population.

Full face garb makes the person completely unlipreadable. And no, asking them to write things down would not always suffice for deaf/HoH people.

It"s a chat forum. We can talk about all kinds of stuff. Are you new to online chat forums?

It matters to me because covering a woman's face is a sign of oppression and I don't like to see it in secular Britain. My female Muslim colleagues don't like it eithet.

You're literally saying you're glad your daughter gets to witness the public abuse of women.
I guess it's OK if they're women from a different culture, maybe you see them as lesser than you and fair game?