Is the burka a symbolic shroud?

Phyllis Chesler writes:

In Turkey—a country which was nearly accepted as a member by the European Union—a father and grandfather recently buried Medine Memi, a sixteen-year-old girl, alive—and all because she was seen talking to boys. Medine was repeatedly beaten. She ran to the police but they did not help her. When the men buried her she was “alive and fully conscious.”

This savage, heartless, primitive act is the ultimate, logical consequence of burying women alive—shrouding them–while they are still allowed to roam the earth. One becomes claustrophobic under the burqa, until one gets used to, indeed becomes dependent upon, being seen as a ghost, a phantom, invisible, not-quite-human, as good as dead.

All this past week, I received news of this Buried Alive atrocity in Turkey. I refrained from writing about it. What can one say? There is nothing to say. There is everything to do. No one is doing anything.

But, all over Europe, they are fighting about the Islamic Veil. Should burqas (full body shrouds) and niqab (face masks) be banned? Should hijab remain banned in school in France?Imams do not have to shame the government in a place like Egypt (or Afghanistan), where Muslim girls and women are being buried alive in another way: literally shrouded, face-masked, and hijabbed.