Only ban the burqa if it is not worn freely

Second, it is telling that 100 per cent of the people wearing burqas are women and that these women all come from a culture that has been shown to represses women.

None of these circumstances are of course decisive. The women under the burqa may be able to project rational reasons why they freely prefer the burqa to showing their face.

In conjunction with a study focusing on the influences on women wearing burqas, empirical data also needs be obtained to see if the lifestyle predicament of women wearing burqas is indicative of oppression.

Are a disproportionate number of women who wear burqas married - and hence have a potentially oppressive influence in their lives? Do women who wear burqas have lower levels of educational and career attainments than other similarly placed women?

It is only once we find the answers to such issues that we can make a sensible and informed judgment about whether we should ban or restrict the burqa, as has been done in some of the most progressive and culturally sensitive nations in the world, including France and Denmark.

Until then the debate will continue to consist of the emoting of the equally flawed politically correct and anti-Muslim lobbies. And during this debate, the default position is that the burqa stays.

The proper bounds of liberty were identified about 150 years ago by British Philosopher John Stuart Mill. He stated that: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.”

Ostensibly, Muslim women chose to wear the burqa. Unless empirically founded evidence is obtained to show that this choice is less then fully free, we need to respect their decisions.

At this stage, the bigger threat to our social cohesion is not the burqa, but the calls to ditch it. Once the overblown sensitivities of others start constituting a basis for curtailing our freedoms, liberty in many forms will be lost.