Brussels, 08/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - An across-the-board ban on wearing the burqa is not a good move, and one that is probably not compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg has said. “Prohibition of the burqa and the niqab would not liberate oppressed women, but might instead lead to their further alienation in European societies,” he said in his latest “Viewpoint”, published in Strasbourg on Sunday 7 March, on International Women's Day. He argued that those who call for a general ban on the burqa and niqab “have not managed to show that these garments undermine democracy, public safety, order or morals”. Such arguments are all the less persuasive as the number of women wearing these garments is very low, he added. In general terms, the state should avoid legislating on how people dress, the commissioner said, indicating that a ban on the burqa and the niqab would be just as bad as condemnation of the Danish caricaturists would have been. The controversy over the wearing of the full-length burqa, which began in France seven months ago, is beginning to spread to neighbouring European countries. (B.C./transl.rt)