Egypt: Universities can't bar niqab
These gals look a little hot under the curtain to me. From Newsweak but worth a longer look if the thought of the niqab makes you crazy. More at the linky.
It was a risky—and frightening—experiment. Taxis refused to stop for me, but male drivers kept pulling over to compliment my eyes (the only part of my body on show) and inviting me into their vehicles. Others just stared. Why the unwelcome attention? Because I was wearing a niqab, the full face veil, on the streets of Cairo. Egypt may be a Muslim country, but its government places numerous restrictions on those who make this religious commitment. That, however, may be about to change in the wake of a decision earlier this month by Egypt’s High Administrative Court.
Egypt’s battle against the niqab has a long history. Authorities originally banned students from wearing it to school in 1994, saying that it violated security standards. Dozens of pupils were suspended in the decade that followed. In nearly all cases however, the court overturned the decision and allowed the girls to return to class. More recently, Cairo University, with the highest enrollment in Egypt, has allowed students to attend wearing the niqab. However, the American University stayed firm, refusing to permit even the niqab-wearing mothers of graduates to attend the commencement ceremony, according to some students. (A more lenient attitude is taken toward the hijab, which covers the hair but leaves the face visible.) The university says the decision is not a religious one, but was made “because all members of the AUC community have a basic right to know with whom they are dealing, whether in class, labs or anywhere else on campus.”
Some women insist that it is nothing more than an “outfit.” One even suggested to me that if young women in the West can mimic the fashions of pop icons “like Britney Spears,” she too should be able to dress like her icon—the wife of the Prophet Mohammed. “We are not coming from a repressed household or a repressed society,” says Sarah El-Meshad, a graduate of the American University in Cairo who took on the face veil after graduation. “This is just a little something extra I am doing for my religion, but I am no different from any other girl.”
That's been brainwashed and repressed by a death cult. Keep putting it out there for Allah, honey.
Egypt’s battle against the niqab has a long history. Authorities originally banned students from wearing it to school in 1994, saying that it violated security standards. Dozens of pupils were suspended in the decade that followed. In nearly all cases however, the court overturned the decision and allowed the girls to return to class. More recently, Cairo University, with the highest enrollment in Egypt, has allowed students to attend wearing the niqab. However, the American University stayed firm, refusing to permit even the niqab-wearing mothers of graduates to attend the commencement ceremony, according to some students. (A more lenient attitude is taken toward the hijab, which covers the hair but leaves the face visible.) The university says the decision is not a religious one, but was made “because all members of the AUC community have a basic right to know with whom they are dealing, whether in class, labs or anywhere else on campus.”
Some women insist that it is nothing more than an “outfit.” One even suggested to me that if young women in the West can mimic the fashions of pop icons “like Britney Spears,” she too should be able to dress like her icon—the wife of the Prophet Mohammed. “We are not coming from a repressed household or a repressed society,” says Sarah El-Meshad, a graduate of the American University in Cairo who took on the face veil after graduation. “This is just a little something extra I am doing for my religion, but I am no different from any other girl.”
That's been brainwashed and repressed by a death cult. Keep putting it out there for Allah, honey.
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