How a veil helped keep Elizabeth Smart captive

[Fumesucker]

http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/11/09/elizabeth_smart_veil/index.html

The issue of the veil and public identification is raised all the time, but never quite like it was during Elizabeth Smart's courtroom testimony today. During the second day of kidnapper Brian David Mitchell's trial, the 23-year-old told jurors that just months after her abduction she was confronted while wearing a veil by a police officer who said he was looking for Elizabeth Smart.

Just months after her abduction, Mitchell took Smart and his wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, to the Salt Lake City library. Then 14, she was outfitted in a burqa-like veil that covered her hair and hung just below her eyes. The officer approached and asked her to pull aside the veil so that he could see her face, but Mitchell told the officer that "only my husband could remove my veil under our religion," Smart said. Then the officer "asked if he could be a part of our religion for a day, just so he could see my face, just so he could go back and say, 'No it wasn't Elizabeth Smart,'" she said. "The defendant was just very calm and very cooly said no only her husband would be able to do that," she said. And just like that, the officer left.

It's fascinating that someone trained to be inquisitive and unrelenting would give up so easily -- especially when you consider that he must have harbored serious suspicion to ask Smart to remove the veil in the first place. All it took was two mentions of religion, though, and the police officer relented. I have to wonder whether it's relevant that this happened in a state known for its hardcore Mormon communities, in which women's modesty is highly prized and guarded. It also may be relevant that this particular interaction happened toward the end of 2002, around a year after 9/11. Certainly there was, and still is, a considerable amount of Islamophobia in the wake of the attacks -- but there was also increased awareness about discrimination against Muslim Americans. Smart, with her blond hair and bright blue eyes, passes far more easily as Mormon than Muslim, but it's easy to imagine that an officer might have felt especially sensitive to cultural and religious issues as that time, and was perhaps afraid of making a wrong move.

"I was mad at myself that I didn't say anything," Smart told the jury. "I was mad at myself for not taking the chance but I just felt like it was so close. I felt terrible that the detective hadn't pushed harder and he had just walked away." I find it hard to come down too hard on the officer, as I can't imagine the pain of discovering that you had come this close to rescuing a young girl from many months of abuse at the hands of her kidnapper (and do not doubt that the details she revealed today are devastatingly awful). There's also no question that there is a larger issue at play, one that a single officer can hardly be expected to adequately answer on his own: How do we respect people's religious and cultural freedom without sacrificing personal and public safety?

[Rage for Order]

1. The covering of women is simply a cultural difference

We should all just mind our own business about it; to do otherwise is Islamophobic bigotry. After all, what's the worst that could happen?

:shrug:

[Skittles]

2. this is sarcasm, right

it has to be :D

[Fumesucker]

3. Elizabeth Smart is not a Muslim..

And what happened to her was rather horrible.

[pnwmom]

6. No. But her captor claimed that her veiling was a religious requirement.

And the policeman bought the argument and didn't even try to talk to her -- which meant she was held captive for 7 more months.

So sad.

[HuckleB]

8. Yup.

Which makes one wonder why a science of sorts (police investigative work) should be hampered by a superstition like religion.

[aquart]

4. The answer is : IT ISN'T OUR CULTURE.

When we go to Muslim countries, our women cover up. But when they come here they don't respect OUR ways?

Ain't not one fucking word in the Koran about veils and full-body armor. This is patriarchal sexism in full riot.There is nothing worth respecting in it.

[HuckleB]

7. I suspect you are quite correct.

As an undergrad, I spent time with Muslim males who came to the US to study engineering. They claimed to be devout Muslims, but I never saw them practice in any way, shape or form. Further, they rather enjoyed the way American women dressed.

Something does not mesh.

[snagglepuss]

9. +1

[defendandprotect]

11. Agree ... it's male-supremacist religious BS ....

And we should be fighting that prejudice but seem only to have ignored it in

Afghanistan -- and where Iraq had none of this veil garbage, religious garb

and behavior has been moved in now.

Don't really have any recent info on all of this, but shocking enough info on

women and girls in Afghanistan in the past while we occupy the country!


:)

[Hannah Bell]

13. this case has nothing to do with islam.

[Rage for Order]

14. Except that the detective's hyper-sensitivity towards all things Islam...

Prevented him from demanding that the veil be removed so he could see the victim's face. I'm sure he had visions of being protested and sued for violating the religious traditions of a Muslim, or some such nonsense, and so rather than risk his career and pension he just walked away. And obviously Elizabeth Smart, and American society as a whole, is the better for it.

:eyes:

[Liquorice]

5. What a tragedy. It's crazy to to think about the girls and women

walking around in this world with veils that must cover their faces, and sometimes large tablecloth-like fabric draped over their heads and bodies for religious reasons. It's surreal. How any one could begin to support such lunacy is beyond me.

[defendandprotect]

10. How really and sadly shocking -- !!!

[Democat]

12. Thank you for posting this article.

It adds to the debate.