Rightwing pundit Ann Coulter seems to think freedom of religion is overrated.
Launching another in a long series of criticisms of immigration reform, Coulter went on an anti-Muslim tirade on conservative opinion show “Hannity” Monday night, saying the wife of dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsnarnaev should be imprisoned for wearing a Muslim veil.
“I don’t care if she knew about this,” Coulter told Sean Hannity, the host of the Fox News show. “She ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab.”
It is not illegal in the United States to wear hijabs. Nevertheless, Muslim women often face harassment for wearing the religious garment, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Katherine Russell, a Rhode Island native, converted to Islam and began wearing a hijab after meeting Tsnarnaev, according to Yahoo! Shine.
“This immigration policy of us assimilating immigrants into our culture isn’t really working,” Coulter added. “They’re assimilating us into their culture. Did she get a clitorectomy too?”
Hannity said he didn’t know the answer to that.
Clitorectomy, commonly referred to as “female genital mutilation,” is practiced in many countries in Africa. The Tsnarnaev family, however, is of Chechen heritage and the suspects spent their youth in Kyrgyzstan and Southern Russia before immigrating to the United States, according to news reports. A 2008 statement by the World Health Organization does not list either country as a place where clitorectomy is traditionally practiced.
But Hannity agreed generally with Coulter’s worries about immigration, raising alarms about foreign students studying in the United States.
“If people are coming from countries where perhaps they grew up under Sharia law, I think we can make a safe assumption that they have been radicalized,” Hannity theorized. “I think allowing foreign students into the country without investigative background checks that are exhaustive is a mistake and it’s putting Americans at risk.”
Coulter took another swipe at immigration reform referring to it as “your pal Mario Rubio’s amnesty bill,” in a comment directed at Hannity.
He pointed out that Florida senator’s first name is actually Marco.
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