I spotted an interesting little article at Pravda today, which gives the Russian view of why Europe is determined to ban the Burka.

As an aside, it also has some rather amusing sideswipes at the EU and the US :

Today the country we are used to calling the European Union that consists of approximately 40 countries, is falling apart. The reason of the collapse is not the economic crisis alone, but the false basis contemporary Europe is built on. This is because the largest part of it is Western Europe that lives in the shadow of the defeat of 1945. It remains the country that is still occupied, the country rigidly controlled by the US through NATO, through the fifth column of officials, and political parties fed by the United States. Let’s not forget that this is the country where Judophilia was forced on people after the defeat. In most of these countries you can go to jail for doubting the existence of Holocaust.

The part I find interesting is that they get straight to the point that everyone else seemingly ignores which is that the bans have nothing really to do with muslim dress and more to do with stopping people covering their faces, thereby conveniently subverting the extensive use of CCTV monitoring of the population :

The ban for wearing burkas, as explained in the documents regarding a fine charged to a woman wearing a burka by the Italian police, first of all has to do with protection from terroristic threat. This is precisely why it is not allowed to wear motorcycle helmets covering face and so on in public places. There is a difference between bans on religious symbols and bans on wearing clothes that cover people’s identity.

I am actually quite surprised that Labour didn’t try to get that one passed in the UK.