1. After all, the niqab – the face veil to which so much secular ire has been drawn – is hardly the bane of public spaces.

2. One Belgian town has outlawed the burqa and niqab from its streets.

3. The niqab is part of a and covers the entire face except for the eyes.

4. A woman wearing a niqab walks in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, France.

5. Burqa or niqab neither has a place in Islam nor should it obtain a place in civilised Western societies where women are equal to men and public safety of all is paramount.

6. Women wearing the burqa and the niqab (the more common facial veil) will not exactly be arrested on sight.

7. One of the defendants was banned from entering the courthouse because she was still wearing the niqab.

8. The fact is that in all these countries the niqab is worn by such a minority that this feels like a witch hunt.

9. France becomes the first country to enforce a ban against the niqab, or Muslim face veil Monday, when new legislation comes into force.

10. Marie told France's RTL radio police waved her down as she was driving her car wearing the niqab.

11. For 40 years under what she disdainfully termed the "liberalism" of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, the niqab had been forbidden."But now we can wear what we like!"

12. When I came back to England I kept on my niqab and the comments just escalated.

13. Today, according to intelligence estimates , some 1,900 women wear the niqab in France.

14. A French parliamentary panel has recommended that face-covering veils such as the burqa or the niqab be banned in public insitutions such as hospitals and schools.

15. SOON after the liberation of Tripoli, the Libyan capital, this correspondent met a woman sporting a niqab, or face veil, along with a floor-length black dress and black gloves.

16. A court this week heard the first case against women for wearing the niqab – or Islamic face veil – since a ban came into force in April.