صحفي أمريكي يحاور هند الهاروني حول اضطهاد المرأة المحجبة في تونس

Veiled Women Bemoan Persecution in Tunisia Written by David E. Miller
Published Monday, September 13, 2010

A human rights group calls on government to allow women to dress as they like.

As the French Senate prepares to outlaw on Tuesday the wearing of the face-covering veil or Niqab in public, a Tunisian human rights group is reporting continued harassment of veiled women and bearded men by the Tunisian government.

According to the Committee for Defense of Veiled Women in Tunisia, in late August the Tunisian Political Police pressured the owner of a shoe factory in the coastal city of Nabeul to dismiss his veiled workers.

The report added that on September 3, 2010 uniformed police patrolled the weekly market of Nabeul, forcing women to sign statements relinquishing their veils and forcing men to shave their beards. The report claimed that this practice has become commonplace in the weekly market.

The legal basis for the police crackdown on veiled women is decree 108, a non-official law issued by President Habib Bourguiba in 1981. The decree banned the wearing of the Islamic headscarf or Hijab in public institutions, including universities and government buildings.

“I personally don’t recognize this decree as a law,” Hend Harouni, a Tunisian human rights activist told The Media Line. “Allah tells us to cover ourselves. If they [the government] ask us not to cover, I don’t have to comply.”

Harouni said that government habitually argues that the Hijab is not a Tunisian garment but rather a foreign introduction, whereas the traditionally Tunisian Foulard, which reveals more hair, is socially acceptable.

“This is not a valid argument,” Harouni says. “Why not ban the American blue jeans for the same reason?”

Harouni recounted the story of her teenage neighbor who she noticed unveiled in the market one day.

“My neighbor told me that she was walking next to a police station when two plain-clothes policemen asked her for her identity card,” Harouni said. “They took her into the station, removed her headscarf, and made her sign a statement giving it up. The document she signed said that if she was caught wearing the veil again she would be punished.”

Harouni says that since the incident her neighbor has not worn her veil, and is wary to discuss the matter openly.

Rasha Moumneh a Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch said that Tunisian women were regularly harassed by police for wearing the veil.

“This practice is tied to the government’s political stance vis-à-vis Islamist political parties, like Al-Nahda,” she told The Media Line. “Al-Nahda was very powerful in Tunisia in a certain point in time.”

Al-Nahda, also known as the Renaissance Party, shares the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and is outlawed in Tunisia.

“The government has been trying to keep the Islamists in their ‘proper place’ and not let them raise their heads,” Moumneh said. “In trying to maintain Tunisia’s image as modern and progressive it has crushed the opposition.”

Hend Harouni says that since she decided to wear the veil several years ago she has encountered no trouble with police, but has noticed the tension of veiled women on the streets of Tunis.

“At the beginning of last year you could see policemen paying more attention to veiled women in bus stops,” she said. “You could tell that the women were ill at ease, fearing they would be questioned.”

Harouni added that over the past decade more and more Tunisian women have decided to veil.

“In the early 1990’s you almost didn’t see veils on the streets,” she said. “Now the media exposes Islam to society through TV programs which deal with religion and Islamic culture from all over the Arab world. Before, there were just the national Tunisian television stations that showed none of that*

http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=29999