It does no good to state the obvious to some people – quoting here from Christopher Hitchens –

[W]e have no assurance that Muslim women put on the burqa or don the veil as a matter of their own choice. A huge amount of evidence goes the other way. Mothers, wives, and daughters have been threatened with acid in the face, or honor-killing, or vicious beating, if they do not adopt the humiliating outer clothing that is mandated by their menfolk. This is why, in many Muslim societies, such as Tunisia and Turkey, the shrouded look is illegal in government buildings, schools, and universities. Why should Europeans and Americans, seeking perhaps to accommodate Muslim immigrants, adopt the standard only of the most backward and primitive Muslim states? The burqa and the veil, surely, are the most aggressive sign of a refusal to integrate or accommodate. Even in Iran there is only a requirement for the covering of hair, and I defy anybody to find any authority in the Quran for the concealment of the face.

Some people will still enjoin us to “listen to women’s voices,” as if annihilating yourself as a presence in the world by wearing a burqa or niqab is a page out of Our Bodies Ourselves. They will assure us that banning the burqa makes the state into an “active instrument of patriarchy” – as if the burqa itself is not, for millions of people, the globe’s most eloquent expression of the most repressive patriarchy imaginable.

At least this writer is honest enough to note the huge, and growing, number of full or partial burqa/niqab bans, especially across Europe; but she’s not honest enough to note the absence in those countries of significant social problems arising from the bans. Or to note the enormous majorities – including, in many cases, among Muslims – for the bans.