Following the landmark ECHR ruling upholding the French and Belgian ban on all public face-masking, the UK must now follow suit by outlawing all garments, including balaclavas, hoodies, etc that obscure or conceal an individual's identity.

Many Muslims have been misled by bogus propanganda from the fundamentalist Wahhabi, Salafi, Deobandi, Tabligh Jamati and Jamati Islami sects that the burqa / niqab is integral to Islam. It is completely untrue: there is no religious mandate for this primitive facial concealment.

The burqa/niqab is an archaic tribal rag that is pre-Islamic and non-Qur'anic, and thus ipso facto un-Muslim. The ludicrous custom of female public anonymity is an imported Saudi-Afghan fad that has a suspicious provenance. This trendy cultural contraption has no authentic Islamic foundation. Facial-masking first originated for aristocratic and sexist reasons in ancient Persia and Byzantium long before the advent of Islam and is currently gaining traction as a result of Saudi petrodollars and Wahhabi sectarianism.

The burqa / niqab should be resisted on compelling theological, social, health, security, gender equality and libertarian grounds so that Britain’s traditional character and identity is preserved. The UK must oppose this latest salvo from theological militants seeking to win the hearts and minds of British Muslims to replicate their warped version of a mythical Arab 7th century society in contemporary Britain.

As integrated British Muslims, we ask HMG to initiate a national debate in Parliament and across the country so that the public cannot be duped by religious zealots falsely claiming that face-masking is Islamic. If it is proscribed on the pilgrimage to Islam's holiest site in Makkah, why do Muslim women wish to wear it on the streets of Britain?

The obsessive fixation by ultra-puritanical fanatics to hide women's faces under the pretext of religion must be exposed as a fallacy. Their chauvinistic mysogyny is nothing but a Trojan shari’ah horse that has to be routed, otherwise it will set a dangerous precedent that will ultimately imperil Britain’s democracy and liberty.

We call upon all thinking British Muslims as well as those of other faiths and none, to join us in extirpating this non-Qur’anic patriarchal control over women. Let us petition the government and inundate our Members of Parliament to do the right thing to finally outlaw this alien cultural monstrosity from Britain's shores and consign it to the dustbin of history.

So, in this holy month of Ramadan, let us all work together to get rid of this unholy mask that only serves to taint Islam and disparage Muslims. If women wish to hide their hair that's fine, but if they want to conceal their faces, that is another matter because no one has the right to public anonymity.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT FOR A BURQA-FREE BRITAIN

SUPPORT WOMEN'S EQUALITY

OPPOSE MUSLIM MISOGYNY