Australia's Parliament House on Monday lifted a short-lived ban on
facial coverings including burqas and niqabs after the prime minister
intervened.
The government department that runs Parliament House announced earlier
this month that "persons with facial coverings" would no longer be
allowed in the open public galleries of the House of Representatives or
the Senate.
Instead, they were to be directed to galleries usually
reserved for noisy schoolchildren, where they could sit behind
sound-proof glass.
The Oct. 2 announcement was made a few hours before the end of the final
sitting day of Parliament's last two-week session and had no practical
effect.
Hours before Parliament was to resume on Monday, the Department of
Parliamentary Services, or DPS, said in a statement that people wearing
face coverings would again be allowed in all public areas of Parliament
House.
- It said face coverings would have to be removed temporarily at the security check point at the front door so that staff could "identify any person who may have been banned from entering Parliament House or who may be known, or discovered, to be a security risk."
- A DPS official, who declined to be named, citing department policy, said that by late Monday no visitor to Parliament House that day had a covered face. Face veils are rarely seen in the building.
The ban on face veils in the public galleries had been widely condemned
as a segregation of Muslim women and a potential breach of federal
anti-discrimination laws.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott later revealed that he had not been notified
in advance that the ban was planned and had asked House Speaker Bronwyn
Bishop to "rethink that decision."
Source: ABC...More...
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