The comments October 5 by Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, have shaken a nation that has been anxious about the state of ties with its Muslim minority since last year's deadly terrorist attacks in London.
Leading Muslim figures said Sunday that their initial anger and fears had been borne out by a surge in hate mail and other abuses directed against their community. Police in the northwestern English city of Liverpool reported meanwhile that a Muslim woman's veil was torn from her face Saturday after she was subjected to racial abuse.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott disagreed with Straw's contention that the veil - or the niqab - was a barrier to face-to-face communication and that it promoted separate cultures. "I think a woman that wants to wear the veil, why shouldn't she? It's her choice," Prescott told BBC television.
While welcoming the debate that Straw has sparked, Prescott was also worried that racists could hijack it for their own ends. Some Muslims fear that has happened already.
Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that his organization had received a number of racist e-mails in the last few days. "Many people have said 'How dare you let women wear full veils'," Bunglawala said.
Among other government officials disagreeing with Straw is Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, who warned that the issue should be treated with caution.
Defending Straw were Harriet Harman, minister of state at the department of constitutional affairs, and Phil Woolas, the minister of communities. "Muslim women have every right to wear a veil covering their face. But they must realize that people who don't understand their culture can find it frightening and intimidating," Woolas wrote in the Sunday Mirror newspaper.
"It can be hard to tell whether women wear the veil as an expression of their faith or because they are compelled to do so," he said. Misunderstandings about the practice can arise, producing "a vicious circle where the only beneficiaries are racists like the British National Party," Woolas warned.
Muslims again protested Saturday in Straw's constituency of Blackburn in northwest England, a working-class, industrial town with a large Muslim minority. Many Muslims were quoted in The Sunday Express as vowing to continue their protests until Straw issues an apology. Some said that they wanted him to resign.
However, not all Muslims agreed.
Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, said that Straw was right to open the debate on wearing niqabs and accused many Muslims of overreacting. "This is not a religious issue but a cultural one," he said.
Siddiqui said that less than 5 percent of Muslim women in Britain wore the niqab. He added that he could understand Woolas' description of the veil as "intimidating" to some people.
In a regular column October 5 in his local newspaper, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, Straw said that he asks Muslim women to remove their veils when they visit his constituency office.
He said that he feared that the veil was a "visible demonstration of separateness" in a country where "parallel communities" are forming. He went even further Friday saying that he would like veils not to be worn at all.
However, Straw welcomed the hijab, or headscarf. By contrast, France in 2004 banned headscarves in state schools, sparking Muslim anger worldwide.
The issue of integrating Britain's 1.65 million Muslims has been high on the political agenda since the July 7, 2005 London bombings, which cost the lives of 56 people, including the four bombers.
Meanwhile, the Church of England has accused the government of favoring Muslims in an attempt to make minority faith communities feel more integrated, in a confidential document leaked to The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse