Veiled women walk past a billboard showing a verse from the Koran urging women to hijab in the northern province of Raqqa, Syria yesterday. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has imposed restrictions on personal freedoms in the northern province among which women must wear the niqab, (full face veil) in public or face unspecified punishments “in accordance with sharia” or Islamic law.

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