{"id":1209,"date":"2009-02-02T17:23:30","date_gmt":"2009-02-02T17:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove.php"},"modified":"2009-02-02T17:23:30","modified_gmt":"2009-02-02T17:23:30","slug":"judge-orders-witness-to-remove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove","title":{"rendered":"Judge Orders Witness to Remove Face Veil"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (RNS) In a case that pits religious freedom against the right of a defendant to face an accuser in court, a judge here has ordered a Toronto woman to testify without her face-covering niqab at a sexual assault trial.
\nThe Toronto Star reports the case could be precedent-setting because it doesn’t appear there is any Canadian case law on the question of veiled women testifying in court.
\nIn Canada, home to at least 600,000 Muslims, the case will be closely watched, amid fears that veiled Muslim women will be forced to bare their faces.
\nThe matter goes back to a preliminary hearing last fall, when the woman, who has not been identified, said she wanted to wear a veil that conceals everything but the eyes while testifying.
\nShe said she would feel “a lot more comfortable” if she did not have to reveal her face.
\nDefense counsel countered that assessing her demeanor was of “critical importance” when tailoring questioning.
\nIn a decision made public only recently, Ontario judge Norris Weisman reached an “admittedly difficult decision” to force the complainant to testify with her face uncovered after finding that her religious belief “is not that strong … and that it is, as she says, a matter of comfort.”
\nThe judge also found that the woman had a driver’s license “with her unveiled facial impression upon it.” The woman explained that the picture on the license had been taken by a female and there was a screen between her and potential male onlookers.
\nBut Weisman wrote the license “can be required to be produced by all sorts of males,” such as police officers and border guards.
\nThe woman’s lawyer said he will appeal the ruling.
\nBy Ron Csillag
\nCopyright 2009 Religion News Service.All rights reserved.No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (RNS) In a case that pits religious freedom against the right of a defendant to face an accuser in court, a judge here has ordered a Toronto woman to testify without her face-covering niqab at a sexual assault trial. The Toronto Star reports the case could be precedent-setting because it doesn’t appear there is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJudge Orders Witness to Remove Face Veil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Judge Orders Witness to Remove Face Veil\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"TORONTO (RNS) In a case that pits religious freedom against the right of a defendant to face an accuser in court, a judge here has ordered a Toronto woman to testify without her face-covering niqab at a sexual assault trial. The Toronto Star reports the case could be precedent-setting because it doesn’t appear there is…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-02T17:23:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Judge Orders Witness to Remove Face Veil","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Judge Orders Witness to Remove Face Veil","og_description":"TORONTO (RNS) In a case that pits religious freedom against the right of a defendant to face an accuser in court, a judge here has ordered a Toronto woman to testify without her face-covering niqab at a sexual assault trial. The Toronto Star reports the case could be precedent-setting because it doesn’t appear there is…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2009-02-02T17:23:30+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove","name":"Judge Orders Witness to Remove Face Veil","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-02T17:23:30+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-02T17:23:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2009\/02\/judge-orders-witness-to-remove#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Judge Orders Witness to Remove Face Veil"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}