A restaurant owner in Germany has provoked outrage after reportedly ordering a niqab-clad Muslim woman to leave the establishment when she refused to remove it.
Christian Schulz, the manager of a Seekrug restaurant in Bielefeld, western Germany, asked the woman to remove the full-face veil as she sat in the busy beer garden during an annual light festival. The woman is said to have refused, at which point Mr Schulz reportedly asked her to leave the restaurant.
Following the incident, the restaurant manager received criticism on the restaurant’s Facebook page, as a result of which, Schulz deleted it. In response to the comments, he wrote a post on the page saying, “I just deleted two posts with almost 800 comments. This is growing over my head. I would have never made it public. However, I have to finish my business before the negative ratings shoot up.”
After sharing this post, Schulz was flooded with support from people and solidarity for his earlier actions. A man named Thomas Reinhardt, wrote, “Right decision. You don’t know who’s under the hood. Woman? Man? Gunman? At home, people can do what they want. But when you’re in a different country you have to inform yourself about how things are and stick to it.”
Another Facebook user shared a comment; “It’s very simple. Germany has its rules here as do other countries. As a German when I visit a mosque I take off my shoes and I respect it. The host thus did the right thing.”
“Thank you for your solidarity. Now we want to do our job again and a give our nice guests a good service,” Schulz wrote in response to the positive feedback.
Schulz had said he ordered the woman to leave fearing the full-face veil made other guests uncomfortable during a busy event. He told German newspaper Rheinische Post, “In times like these such a request isn’t unreasonable at such a big event.” He added that the restaurant employed people from a range of backgrounds, saying, “We employ people from around the world, from Ghana, Turkey, Egypt, Ukraine, Poland, Pakistan, Portugal.” Since the incident, Schulz changed the profile picture on the page to a photo of him with a Ghanaian chef who works at his restaurant.
There is no national law in Germany that restricts the wearing of the niqab, but German states have the power to change their laws locally.
COURTESY: THE INDEPENDENT