(Reuters) A Copenhagen policewoman is being investigated for embracing a niqab-wearing protestor during a demonstration against a ban on face veils, the force’s complaints body said on Wednesday.
The incident, in which the protester appeared to be crying, was captured by a Reuters photographer on Aug. 1 when a countrywide ban on the wearing of face veils in public took effect.
“The photo has made the police an involuntary actor in a very sensitive political debate which they should not participate in,” said Marcus Knuth, a lawmaker with the anti-immigrant Liberal Party, which is the biggest in the government.
He and others alerted the independent complaints body over the gesture. “The police’s job is to enact the law, not to hug people who are against it,” he said.
