When Boko Haram wore the veil to attack — West and Central Africa’s bans
Chad banned the full face veil in 2015 after a Boko Haram bombing killed 33, pre-empting the group's known pattern of using veiled bombers. Cameroon's ban followed weeks later, after veiled bombers struck there directly. Congo and Guinea followed. The justification is specific and unusual.
Of every restriction covered on this site, this group has the most specific and most narrowly evidenced justification: veils were actually used as a weapon.
Chad — June 2015
Twin suicide bombings in Nʼdjamena killed 33 people, attributed to Boko Haram. Reporting on the attack itself does not establish that these particular bombers wore the veil, but the group had already used that disguise elsewhere. Prime Minister Kalzeube Pahimi Deubet announced the ban two days later: "Wearing the burqa must stop immediately from today."
Cameroon — July 2015
The following month, two female suicide bombers wearing the burqa detonated themselves in Fotokol in Cameroon's Far North Region, killing 13. The region banned the burqa in response; the ban has since spread to five of the country's ten regions.
The wider pattern
Congo and Guinea introduced similar restrictions in the same period, as Boko Haram's tactics shifted toward using women, including women wearing full-face coverings, as suicide bombers.
Why the justification here is different in kind
The European bans argue from principle — secularism, "living together," public order in the abstract. Sri Lanka's argument is general counter-terrorism following an attack in which veils were not used as a disguise. This group is narrower still, though not uniformly: in Cameroon's case, the veil was the confirmed method of concealment in the specific attack that prompted the law; Chad's ban came days after an attack whose bombers' attire was never confirmed, pre-empting a disguise the group had already used elsewhere.
That does not settle whether the ban is proportionate or well-targeted, it still burdens every veiled woman for the acts of a few bombers, but it is a different argument from the others on this site, and worth keeping distinct rather than folding into "security" as though it were one thing everywhere.
Sources. The National · VOA News · Anadolu Agency