An interesting piece of news in the Jordanian Arabic press this week relates to the arrest of 50 suspects who used the veil as a cover to carry out 170 crimes, ranging from shoplifting and stealing mobile phones to bag snatching and armed robbery. Amusingly, 27 of those arrested were men (and nearly all were Jordanian citizens). I’m not sure how they eventually tracked them down, maybe by their handbags and shoes, who knows?
Aside from the debate raging around gender equality issues in France and elsewhere, which carries with it a whole set of cultural and religious minefields, those wishing to ban the veil would probably garner more support if they confined their arguments to issues of crime and security. In the age of CCTV, what better cover is there for criminals than the veil?
