#German state bars students from wearing full-face Muslim veils

Germany’s third-largest state has banned girls from wearing full-face Muslim veils in its schools, according to a report.

The move by officials in Baden-Württemberg came amid growing national controversy over the ultra-conservative religious practice — and followed previous decisions by nine European Union countries to outlaw “face-covering clothing.”

It also came despite a court ruling in March that reversed a similar ban in Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, Deutsche Welle reported.

The premier of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, a leading Green party politician, said that full-face veils had no place in a free society — while conceding that few students actually wore them, DW said.

The ban doesn’t affect women attending the state’s universities, which Kretschmann described as a more complicated issue because they’re adults, according to DW, Germany’s publicly funded international news operation.

Other Green party leaders in Baden-Württemberg have claimed that the Islamic veil, known as a “niqab,” along with the full-body covering known as a “burqa,” were “symbols of oppression,” DW said.

Prominent conservative politicians, including Julia Klöckner of Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, have called for a nationwide ban on full-face Muslim veils.

But the Green party has been split on the issue, with a spokesman for its faction in parliament saying that people who live in a democracy should be free to wear symbols of their religion.

A poll of Germans last year found that 54% favored a ban on burqas.