2023-09-12 13:19:05
The Egyptian Ministry of Education has banned the wearing of full veils in public and private schools, a decision which sparked debate on Tuesday on the social networks of the most populous Arab country.
Monday, the government newspaper Akhbar al-Youm published the new decree on school uniforms which notably prohibits primary and secondary students from “covering their faces”.
The veil is “optional”, indicates the decree, according to “the desire of the student, without pressure or coercion from anyone other than the legal guardian, who must be informed of this choice”.
Although the majority of Egyptian women wear the veil, the niqab remains a minority in this overwhelmingly Muslim country.
“People are angry because the government has not given any justification, it is a tyrannical decision which encroaches on private life,” reacts Mohammed on X (ex-Twitter).
“No one is angry except those who support the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS),” retorts “al-Masri” on the same network.
Ahmed Moussa, host of a talk show and fervent supporter of the regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, welcomed “a first important step towards the destruction of extremism and the correction of the situation of “education has become the den of Muslim Brotherhood terrorist groups”.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi speaking during a press conference, in Yerevan, January 29, 2023. (Credit: Karen Minasyan/AFP)
Since Mr. Sissi deposed President Mohamed Morsi – a member of the Muslim Brotherhood – in 2013, the brotherhood, declared “terrorist”, has been banned and its members and leaders have been killed by the hundreds and imprisoned by the thousands.
For Internet users, however, the problem of education in the country of 105 million inhabitants crushed by inflation and public debt lies elsewhere.
“Is it the niqab which is responsible for the overcrowded classes, the obsolescence of the equipment and the difficulties of the teachers? », asks another Internet user.
At the end of 2015, Cairo University, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Egypt, banned the wearing of the niqab for its teachers, a decision confirmed in 2020 by an administrative court in Cairo.
The strictest form of the Islamic veil, the niqab is generally black in color, it only reveals the eyes through a slit.
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