Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has said that veils such as 'naqab' or 'burqa' prevent Muslim women from expressing their personality.
'I think we can get very hung up about women's clothes. The question is whether we honour people's religious beliefs or not. I am happy to honour people's religious beliefs, provided they are freely undertaken,' she told Radio 4's Today programme.
She said, 'women covering their heads, women dressing modestly, I have no problem with at all. I think, however, that if you get to a stage where a woman is not able to express her personality because you cannot see her face, then you do start to have to ask whether this is something that
is actually acknowledging the woman's right to be a person in her own right.'
Later, in a speech at Chatham House, London, she argued that discrimination against women was often due to distortion of their true message of some faiths, usually by male leaders.
Cherie pointed to the way Islamic Sharia law had been interpreted.
'It is not laid down in the Koran that women can be beaten by their husbands or that their evidence should be devalued, as it is in some Islamic courts,' she said.
She also referred to legislation in Egypt and Orthodox Jewish communities curtailing a woman's ability to start divorce proceedings and called for more campaigning for women's rights in Iran, where they can be stoned to death for adultery.
