Archbishop backs right to wear veil and cross

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said on Friday he opposed any government interference in a Muslim woman's right to wear a veil or a Christian's right to wear a cross.

Senior British government minister Jack Straw sparked heated debate earlier this month by saying Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations harder. Prime Minister Tony Blair later called the veil "a mark of separation".

"The ideal of a society where no visible public signs of religion would be seen - no crosses around necks, no sidelocks, turbans or veils - is a politically dangerous one," said Williams, head of the world's 77 million Anglicans.

"It assumes that what comes first in society is the central political 'licensing authority', which has all the resource it needs to create a workable public morality," he wrote in an article in the Times newspaper.

Blair and other European leaders have said the wearing of full veils presents difficulties for their nations with Muslim communities and immigrants needing to integrate into Western societies.

The question of whether Europe is doing enough to integrate Muslims has been urgently addressed by governments since British-born Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people in attacks on London's transport system in July 2005.

But some Muslims say there is increasing "Islamophobia".

"The proverbial visitor from Mars might have imagined that the greatest immediate threat to British society was religious war, fomented by 'faith schools', cheered on by thousands of veiled women and the Bishops' benches in the House of Lords," said Williams.

Last week, a British employment tribunal ruled a Muslim teaching assistant had not been discriminated against when the school where she worked asked her to remove her veil.

Earlier, a British Airways worker said she was sent home for refusing to conceal a small Christian cross while on duty.