written in September 2013, Nesrine Malik explains her discontent with being forced to wear the niqab, a kind of dress that only exposes the eyes, saying, "I would rather no one wore a niqab. I would rather that no woman had effectively to disappear, from a young age, because that is the norm in her family. [...] I would rather that Islam be purged of the niqab and all its permutations." Malik is among the Muslim women who feel as though the act of veiling hides women; she would like to ban the niqab from Islam. The former Muslim, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, wrote in her book Nomad about the veil: "(...) deliberately marks women as private and restricted property, nonpersons. The veil sets women apart from men and apart from the world; it restrains them, confines them, grooms them for docility. A mind can be cramped just as a body may be, and a Muslim veil blinkers and conditions both your vision and your destiny. It is the mark of a kind of apartheid, not the domination of a race but of a sex." A recent incident in Germany reflects the extent of the issue on an international scale: "An administrative court in the southern German city of Munich has banned a female Muslim student from wearing a facial veil in class." Although Germany does not have an official ban on the hijab, according to the nation's highest courts federal states have permission to ban Muslim state employees wearing clothing they deem inappropriate. This rule leaves flexibility for German legislators to essentially make their own rules concerning clothing/dress in the country. Iran is another country with strict rules on the hijab, and many women feel pressured from the government to dress in a certain style. One Iranian woman, Hengameh Golestan, decided to protest the Iranian government through her own artistic display. Hijab by country The legal and cultural status of the hijab is different in different countries. Some have banned the wearing of all overt religious symbols, including the hijab (a Muslim headscarf, from the Arabic "to cover"), in public schools or universities or government buildings. Austria In 2017, a legal ban on covering one's face in public (primarily targeting Islamic clothing such as burqa and niqab) was adopted by the Austrian parliament. Additionally, on 16 May 2019, the Austrian parliament placed a ban on "ideologically or religiously influenced clothing