Wearing a burqa in any society where face masks and voluminous robes are not customarily worn is, indeed, a form of “reverse exhibitionism.”

It has nothing to do with modesty; it’s all about confrontation. The burqa draws a tremendous amount of attention and scrutiny regarding who, or what, is under that burqa. (“Who” being jihadis or other criminals, male or female. “What” being BOMBS or other deadly weapons.) Political correctness forbids the authorities from conducting proper security checks. The burqa grabs our attention; even if we try not to stare, we are compelled to WORRY. And that’s the whole point.

The burqa is a security risk even in Muslim countries:

Pakistan Taliban Use Husband, Wife Suicide Bombers

Says lobo91:

This can’t be true. Our own DHS secretary says that women in burqas are less of a threat than nuns and toddlers…

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — The Pakistani Taliban said Sunday the group had sent a husband and wife suicide squad to carry out an attack on a police station in northwestern Pakistan that killed 10 people, a rare instance of militants using a woman as a bomber.

The pair entered the police station in Kolachi on Saturday and said they were there to lodge a complaint, said Imtiaz Shah, a senior police official. Once inside, the two attacked with grenades and machine guns, triggering a five-hour standoff with police.

Both attackers, including the woman wearing an all-covering robe known as a burqa, eventually blew themselves up. They killed eight police officers and two civilians, said Mohammad Hussain, another police official.

“This shows how much we hate Pakistani security institutions,” Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Ahsan claimed it was the first time the militant group had used a female suicide bomber.

However, Pakistani officials said a female suicide bomber wearing a burqa attacked a World Food Program food distribution center in northwestern Pakistan late last year, killing 45 people.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack in Khar, the main city in the Bajur tribal area, but never claimed it was carried out by a female bomber. Still, that was believed to be the group’s first attack by a female suicide bomber.

Male suicide bombers often don the burqa as a disguise. [emphasis added] In 2007, officials initially claimed Pakistan’s first female suicide bomber had killed 14 people in the northwest town of Bannu. But the attacker was later identified as a man.

Islamic militants in Iraq have used female suicide bombers several times because women in their all-covering robes are seen as able to pass more easily through security. Male security officers are often hesitant to search women.

Also Sunday, a bomb planted in a motorcycle exploded near a police station in the central city of Multan, said Zahid Zaman, a senior government official.

The blast wounded eight people, including four police officials, said Wasim Hashmi, chief of the rescue squad in Multan. No group claimed responsibility.

More here.

The burqa is also a useful tool for attention-whoring in the service of expansionist Islam, as the Carnita Matthews case shows us:

Lift the burqa on cowardly extremism

Miranda Devine – The Daily Telegraph – June 23, 2011 12:00AM

THE preposterous excuses and Pythonesque theatrics of Carnita Matthews and her thuggish supporters outside the Downing Centre Courts this week would be comic, if they weren’t so threatening.

The 46-year-old mother of seven, wearing a full black niqab showing just her eyes, has successfully tied the justice system up in knots for the past year, simply to avoid paying a $197 traffic fine.

Described as being “deliberately malicious and … ruthless” by the magistrate who convicted her last November of falsely claiming a “racist” police officer tried to tear off her veil during a random breath test, Matthews escaped her six-month jail sentence on appeal before the District Court.

Ironically, appeal Judge Clive Jeffreys could not be certain beyond reasonable doubt it was Matthews who had lodged the complaint against Senior Constable Paul Fogarty, because (drum roll) she was wearing the niqab when she arrived at Campbelltown police station last June.

“All we know is that a person with a black burqa came in with a man in a brown suit with an envelope and that’s it,” he said.

But somebody lied about Sen-Constable Fogarty, whose innocence and restraint in the face of Matthews’ screeching provocation were evident on the 20-minute in-car police video, without which his career would have been in jeopardy.

The prosecution was unable to satisfy Judge Jeffreys that the liar was Matthews, despite the fact her friend, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib, alleged to radio 2GB’s Chris Smith on Tuesday that he had accompanied her to the police station to lodge the complaint. As well, Channel 7 has footage of Matthews allegedly signing a statutory declaration and driving to the police station.

Maybe the case was too hot to handle. It grew from a simple traffic fine for a woman with a string of driving offences, to a core test of political Islam: Whether a veiled Muslim woman has the right to refuse a police officer’s lawful request that she identify herself.

The answer is no.

That right does not exist under our law.

But that doesn’t stop Islamist activists pushing for it, as if it is their due.

Regardless of who signed the false complaint against Sen-Constable Fogarty, it was the intimidating behaviour of Matthews’ male supporters outside court this week which was most offensive.

The bearded men who chanted “Allah Akbar” (God is Great) as they marched roughshod on cameramen weren’t behaving normally.

Their theatrics were a declaration of war on Australia, on the media, on police.

Linking arms and striding down the street chanting the phrase we have heard again and again – often in the wake of other appalling crimes – was a show of power by people who put the authority of their God above the law of the land.

It is a direct challenge to Australian law and order.

We increasingly see the same challenge issued whenever a hardline Islamist appears in court, as the call goes out for “brothers” to run “protection” for the accused.
[…]
The burqa or niqab, as several Muslims have pointed out this week, is not a requirement of the Koran, which advises women only to dress modestly. But it has become a potent symbol of political Islam.

Gallacher has flagged a law change to allow Muslim women to use fingerprints to verify their identity as an alternative to lifting their veils, but he needs to avoid creating special laws for any particular group.

Australia is one of the most successful immigrant nations on Earth. It would therefore be a pity to follow the European path of banning Islamic face coverings, because the result would simply be more repression of women.

In order to safeguard freedoms – not least of Muslim women to wear the veil – then every challenge to this nation’s authority must be countered whenever it arises.

Giving an inch to the intimidation of political Islam is a mistake.

More here.

Needless to say, I strongly disagree with Devine’s conclusion that Muslim women, or anybody else, should have the right to disguise themselves with facial masks in public. Nor do I believe in allowing any Muslim immigration whatsoever to non-Muslim countries.

Andrew Bolt: Who was that masked woman?

VIDEO LINK: Burqa battle to continue

Andrew Bolt says:

I can’t be bothered with the legal tip-toe, so no comments. But Mamdouh Habib says it was indeed Carnita Matthews inside that burqa.

The involvement of former Gitmo inmate Mamdouh Habib is a dead giveaway that the Carnita Matthews contretemps has nothing to do with modesty, and everything to do with Muslim expansionism.

According to the article below, Mamdouh Habib’s wife, Maha, works as a private detective in Sydney. She wears a hijab, but not a niqab (face veil) or burqa. Mamdouh himself is a real piece of work:

Introducing Mrs Mamdouh Habib Female Private Eye, Her Husband Who Owned a Security Company Was Accused of Training 9/11 Hi-Jackers

[…]
JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD)
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA
APO AE 09360
Full Name: Mamdouh Habib his photo above with American flag upside down.
Citizenship: Egyptian
Nationality: Australian

Date of Birth: 06/03/1955..AGE 55
Family status: Married with four children

Occupation: Businessman – Cleaning company and Security Company.

Information: Mamdouh Habib immigrated to Australia in 1980. He married Lebanese born Maha Habib, and the couple have four children, Ahmed (19), Mustafa (16), Maryam (11) and Hager (4). The family lived in Sydney where Mamdouh set up and ran a contract cleaning firm and a security company.

On the 29 July 2001 he left to go to Pakistan on a three month visa. According to Maha Habib he “went searching for opportunities to set up a business to support the family and a suitable school to teach our children” , yeah sure he did.

In reality Mamdouh Habib, his photo above, went to two Al-Qaeda terror training camps in Afghanistan see http://resources.news.com.au/files/2011/04/25/1226044/528311-mamdouh-habib-file.pdf

o In September 2001 Mamdouh Habib traveled to a military training base run by Abu Hafs aka Mohammed Atef. He was there only 3 or 4 days thent raveled to a Al-Qaeda guest house in Kabul and also to the Malik guest house. Upon returning to Kandahar he was told to leave because the US had began its bombing campaign in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.

o October 5th, 2001, Pakistani authorities captured Mamdouh Habib as he traveled by bus from Quetta to Karachi, Pakistan (PK), with two Germans, Ibrahim Diab and Bekim Ademi, who were suspected Al-Qaeda members from Hamburg, Germany.

Mamdouh Habib was linked to or connected to;

o He trained six of the 9/11 hi-jackers in the use of martial arts

o He also taught them how to use a knife disguised as a cigarette lighter

o He was en route to hi-jack a Qantas flight with his friend Jamal (LNU)

o His friend Rakim (LNU) was going to conduct a simultaneous operation from Thailand

o He had information on his home computer to be used to poison an unidentified river (Hudson NY) in the United States

o He fought in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan with Muslim terrorists.

Mamdouh Habib was arrested in Pakistan on 5 October 2001 in the town of Khuzdar, while on a bus to Karachi. Arrested alongside Mamdouh were two Germans from Hamburg, Ibrahim Diab and Bekim Ademi, with whom he had eaten the previous evening. The day before his arrest, Mamdouh Habib, was in Quetta PK where he met Ibrahim Diab and Bekim Ademi and had dinner with them. They agreed to travel together and they were arrested along with him the next day.
[…]
More here.