Professor Prothero, Meet the Burqa Bandits

In a piece for USA Today on August 2, Stephen Prothero, a Boston University professor and CNN blogger, laments the burqa bans being debated in Europe and mocks those who harbor concerns — hilariously unfounded in his view — about the “possibility of cross-dressing criminals concealed behind burqas starting a spate of bank robberies from London to Rome.” “To paraphrase The Shadow,” he writes, “who knows what evil lurks behind the jihab?”

“Possibility”? Besides failing to enlighten readers about what a “jihab” is, Prothero blissfully ignores the litany of terrorist attacks and mundane crimes, including many “from London to Rome,” carried out by men in face-covering Islamic veils and compiled by Daniel Pipes. More unfortunate for Prothero’s article, two stories appeared soon after to underscore the security threat of burqas and niqabs — and to demonstrate the danger right here in the U.S.

First, on August 10, a robbery took place at a bank in Silver Spring, Maryland, with the suspect reportedly disguising himself in Islamic garb:

Police said the man who robbed a TD Bank branch on Briggs Chaney Road about 4:20 p.m. Tuesday was wearing a “long black burqa over his face.”

Second, the 2008 slaying of Philadelphia Police Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski has been back in the news; the officer was shot following a bank holdup in which multiple Muslim perpetrators, one of whom was subsequently killed, had “donned Muslim women’s clothes — a hijab covering their heads; long dresses, called an abaya; and face veils.” What stands out in Judge Renee Hughes’ sentencing of the two surviving assailants, both found guilty of first-degree murder and handed life terms, are her blunt comments for Eric Floyd, whom she labeled a “coward":

You chose to disrespect the faith you claim to uphold. … People in Philadelphia cross the street to avoid Muslim women because of you.

A 2009 article on prison conversions illuminates how criminals employ Islamic dress to their advantage. The picture painted of Liczbinski’s killers is chilling:

To Western eyes, two of them became hijabi — Muslim women who cover themselves — by pulling on full-length black burqas. They became, in a sense, invisible. The bank sat inside a busy supermarket, where shoppers would surely notice the two monoliths moving among them; but just as surely, those shoppers would pass by with eyes cast down, or aside, or beyond. They may be drawn for a moment by the sheer otherness of the hijabi, but would dependably look away with a twinge of awkward guilt for having noticed.

Far from mere straw men useful for illustrating alleged Western intolerance, “cross-dressing criminals” are all too real. And this is why so many want to “ban from public places these hideous, unhealthy, socially divisive, terrorist-enabling, and criminal-friendly garments.”

January 21, 2011, Update: A new Islamist Watch blog post surveys recent burqa banditry in the U.S. and finds that TD Bank appears to be preferentially targeted.

Twitter
Telegram
LinkedIn
Email
Copy
Link copied
Print

David J. Rusin

David J. Rusin investigates and combats nonviolent radical Islam in the United States and other Western countries for Islamist Watch. His research has highlighted the dangers posed by Islamist-leaning individuals with government security clearances, debunked the myth that American Muslims are more likely than other minorities to suffer hate crimes, and tracked the progress of Philadelphia’s “black Muslim enclave.” He has been the curator of Islamist Watch’s extensive news archive for more than half a decade and previously served as the project’s director. Prior to joining the Forum, Mr. Rusin worked as an astrophysicist. He also spent two years as the Philadelphia editor at PJ Media