Introduction

Bans on the wearing of religious symbols are very much at the forefront in political discourse and in the media in many European countries at the moment and especially the wearing of headscarves and face coverings by Muslim women and girls is being widely debated. But why are the latter especially singled out for so much attention? Many of the European states have seen an infl ux of Muslim migrants and these migrants, as Zwamborn writes: 1

practise and promote their religion in a more prominent and public fashion, going against the general trend among the Christian denominations which is to see one’s religion increasingly as a private, publicly less prominent issue.