Belgium's lower house of parliament April 29 banned burqa-type Islamic dress in public, but the measure faces a challenge in the Senate, which will delay early enactment of the law.

Christian Democrats and Liberals in the Senate questioned the phrasing of the law, which holds no one can appear in public "with the face fully or partly covered so as to render them no longer recognizable."

Following the fall of Prime Minister Yves Leterme's government April 22, Belgium faces early elections that may delay passage of the ban — Europe's first — by several months. Both houses of parliament must approve the bill.

Like elsewhere in Europe, Belgium struggles with anxieties that visible signs of Islam erode national identity and that women in traditional conservative Islamic dress, such as the burqa, the chador and the niqab, signal a refusal to assimilate in Western society.

AP