Burqa ban splits Morocco society

This file photo taken on August 12, 2016 shows Moroccan women wearing the niqab walking on the beach with their children in Casablanca. (AFP)

RABAT: Morocco’s ban on the sale and production of full-face veils (burqa) has sharply divided opinions in the North African country.
Writers and intellectuals have condemned the burqa ban.
“No authority in the world has the right to impose a dress code on a woman or a man for their everyday life,” wrote columnist Abdellah Tourabi, in a view widely shared on social media in Morocco.
Is the burqa foreign to Moroccan culture? he asked.
Sure, but “slim jeans were not the apparel of the sultans and our grandmothers were not crazy about Victoria’s Secret bras,” Tourabi said.
“The burqa is not an item of clothing just like any other... it’s an instrument of oppression, a horrific negation of women, an insult to half of humanity,” according to award-winning French-Moroccan novelist Leila Slimani.
Slimani, in an opinion piece on news website Le360, said the burqa ban signaled that Morocco was moving “toward greater equality between the sexes.”
Another vocal supporter, Nouzha Skalli, a lawmaker and former family and social development minister, said the ban constituted “an important step in the battle against religious extremism.”
On the web, a social media commentator suggested the Interior Ministry go further by banning makeup “as it used more to cover up women’s faces.”
Outspoken preacher Abu Naim condemned “the Satan-worshippers” and “atheists serving the interests of the Jews” behind the burqa ban.
And yet, Morocco “considers the wearing of the Western swimsuit on the beaches an untouchable right,” was the bitter comment of another preacher, Hammad Kabbaj.
Oussama Boutaher, coordinator of a committee which defends Islamist detainees, said the ban was outright “discriminatory” and would turn devout Muslims into “second-class citizens.”
While there has been no official announcement, media reports said the ministry order banning the burqa would take effect this week.
“We have taken the step of completely banning the import, manufacture and marketing of this garment in all the cities and towns of the kingdom,” Le360 quoted a high-ranking ministry official as saying.
Ministry officials on Monday started carrying out “awareness-raising campaigns with traders to inform them of this new decision,” said another website, Media 24.
Le360 said the measure appeared to be motivated by security concerns, “since bandits have repeatedly used this garment to perpetrate their crimes.”