A primary school teacher in Egypt , who wears
niqab, or full face veil , has been sanctioned after
cutting the hair of two 9-year-old girls as
punishment for not obeying orders to wear
Muslim headscarves to class, press reports said
on Thursday.
The incident has fuelled fears that the country’s
Islamist government is emboldening extremist
movements and encroaching on personal rights
in the name of religion.
Berbesh Khairi El-Rawi decried the teacher’s
action and filed a formal complaint against her,
and she was sanctioned with the loss of a
month’s salary.
A daily, Al-Masry al-Youm quoted the woman as
saying: “I did not imagine that cutting off two
centimetres (of hair) was a great crime.
“I was joking with them when one of the students
got out some scissors and asked me to carry out
my threat. I did it to maintain my authority.”
Most Muslim women in Egypt cover their hair,
but the full face veil is associated with the ultra-
conservative Salafist school of thought.
Ironically, Egypt ’s Al-Azhar University, the most
prestigious centre of religious learning in the
Sunni Muslim world, banned the face veil from its
female-only classrooms and residences in 2009.
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