CAIRO – Joining other European countries, Latvia has banned niqab, or full-face hijab, in public, in a decision that will affect only three women in the entire country.

“A legislator’s task is to adopt preventative measures,” Latvia’s Justice Minister Dzintars Rasnacs told the New York Times.

“We do not only protect Latvian cultural-historical values, but the cultural-historical values of Europe.”

Citing a desire to protect Latvian culture, the government is working on proposed legislation, inspired by similar restrictions on niqab in France.

The Islamic head covering is worn by only three women in the Baltic nation, whose population is estimated by two million people and includes about 1,000 practicing Muslims, according to government estimates.

The country agreed to accept 776 refugees over the next two years as part of the European Union’s efforts to resettle refugees.

Though only six out of the 776 refugees have arrived in Latvia, many saw the legislation as a direct result of security concerns due to the increasing number of immigrants flocking to Europe.

“I think that covering one’s face in public at a time of terrorism presents a danger to society,” said Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a former president of Latvia whose family fled the country when it was taken over by the Soviet Union during World War II.

“It’s as simple as that.”

“Anybody could be under a veil or under a burqa,” she said. “You could carry a rocket launcher under your veil. It’s not funny.”

Proud Muslims

In a country with a tiny Muslim population, Liga Legzdina stands out as one of the three women who chose to don the niqab.

Legzdina, 27, is a native Latvian who reverted to Islam after a trip to Egypt as a teenager.

“I love my country,” she said with pride. Yet she said she felt threatened by the way people responded to her appearance.

“People have become much more aggressive than before,” she said.

Legzdina, a medical student at a university in Riga, lives in a suburb of Riga, where she faces verbal abuse on a daily basis.

Interactions on buses and trams, she said, often involve her being told to “go back to where you come from,” and tend to end with awkward moments when she replies to the person confronting her in perfect Latvian.

“If they are so afraid,” she said, “it shows they are not strong, and they don’t believe in their own culture.”

Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.

As for the face veil, the majority of Muslim scholars believe that a woman is not obliged to cover her face or hands.

Scholars, however, believe that it is up to women to decide whether to take on the veil.