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You are here: Home News Community News Spanish judge expels witness for wearing burka

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24/09/2009Spanish judge expels witness for wearing burka

A Muslim woman refusing to show her face when testifying was asked to leave the courtroom.

Madrid – A Spanish judge on Wednesday expelled a Muslim woman wearing a burka from his court for refusing to show her face when testifying in the trial of a group of Islamic extremists.

"Seeing your face, I can see if you are lying or not, if you are surprised by a question or not," Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez told the woman, the sister of an Islamic radical killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2005.

The woman said that her religion forbade her from appearing in public without her burka, the all-covering article of clothing worn by some Islamic women, according to an AFP journalist present.

When she refused to reveal her face, the judge expelled her from the courtroom.

But after speaking to the judge later in his chambers, a compromise was reached.

She said she had agreed to testify on Monday minus the part of her burka which normally covers the face "between the chin and the eyebrows" and with her back turned to the public and journalists in the courtroom.

AFP / Expatica


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