German police say a Muslim woman wearing a veil covering her entire face and body was attacked and verbally abused inside a Berlin store.
German police say a Muslim woman wearing a veil covering her entire face and body was attacked and verbally abused inside a Berlin store.
Police today said a 28-year-old woman insulted the victim and ripped the veil of the burqa from her head.
The attacker then followed the 54-year-old victim out of the store and continued shouting anti-foreigner abuse at her before being detained by police.
Police gave no more details of the incident.
Last year the German Parliament approved a government proposal to ban the wearing of all veils that fully cover the face by public employees in schools, courts and other institutions.
Anti-Islam groups have called for a total ban on the wearing of all full-face veils in Germany.
The new laws, which were passed in April, follow several terrort attacks, including a truck rampage through a Berlin Christmas market that claimed 12 lives, and come ahead of September elections. The new law on facial coverings falls short of a total ban in public places demanded by right-wing parties, like that in effect in neighbouring France since 2011.
The move comes after Chancellor Angela Merkel called in December for a ban on full-face Muslim veils "wherever legally possible". There are five months to go before a federal election, and her conservatives lost some support to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) during the migrant crisis.
The prohibition will apply to public servants -- including election officials, military and judicial staff -- performing their duties. "The state has a duty to present itself in an ideologically and religiously neutral manner," says the text of the law passed by the lower house on Thursday evening.
Germany has since 2015 taken in more than one million migrants and refugees, most from predominantly Muslim countries. This has stoked a xenophobic backlash and boosted the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party, which has attempted to link the influx to a heightened threat of terrorism.
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