A ban on face covering has nothing to do with religious bigotry or sexist repression of Muslim women. It is quite simply a matter of public safety. Showing your face in public is important to deter crime. Anybody who goes masked knows they are practically immune from prosecution because nobody can recognize them and CCTV cameras are rendered useless. It should never be called a "niqab ban" as this encourages people to look at it the wrong way and get confused by irrelevant bigotry and sexism concerns. A well thought out ban on face covering should have no religious or sexist aspect at all. It should apply equally to any form of face covering worn anywhere in public - by men or woman of any religion or none. Even though it may be true that the most common form of face covering is the niqab, who can say whether that niqab is being worn by a devout Muslim woman or a criminal.