When I finished my midterm on Tuesday morning, I switched on my phone and was surprised by the flood of emails, articles and messages: Fatah, with mediation by Cairo, had successively reached a reconciliation pact with Hamas. Was Palestinian unity achieved overnight?
In a free society, people should be able to express themselves and their opinions as they see fit. However, recently in France, legislation has come into effect that effectively bans the wearing of a burqa, the full-body Islamic veil, in a public area or space (wearing a burqa in a public school has been banned since 2004). French authorities say that only about 1,900 women wear the burqa or the niqab, two versions of the full covering with a mesh or slit for the eyes. This amounts to 0.038 percent of France’s Muslim population.
