Prime Minister Youssef Chahed of Tunisia on Friday prohibited anyone wearing the niqab, a religious covering for the face with only an opening for the eyes, from entering public institutions and government offices, citing security reasons.
After Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, which started the Arab Spring, an Islamist political party came to power, and Tunisians were divided over use of the niqab in public spaces. There was broad public debate over women’s rights and religious freedom.
But since then, terrorist attacks and a concentrated effort to fight them mean that for much of the population, safety, and the need to clearly identify faces, have taken precedence, making Tunisia’s ban “not so surprising,” according to Amel Grami, a professor at Manouba University who studies Islam.
“Society is aware of the necessity of security,” she said.
With the decision, Tunisia joined a growing number of countries, including neighbouring Algeria and Morocco, to impose restrictions on the use of religious coverings in the name of security.
The ban came a week after two suicide bombers attacked security forces, killing two people — a policeman and a civilian.
Later, when police cornered the man who had coordinated the two suicide bombings, some bystanders who had witnessed the manhunt said he had been wearing a full-face veil — a rumour that was later denied by the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Sofiene Zaag, speaking to Tunis Afrique Press, the national press agency.
In 2014, the Ministry of Interior made an announcement about a wanted man who wore a niqab to escape police and began conducting security checks on people wearing the face covering.
This is not the first time religious garb was proscribed in Tunisia. Under President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s long rule, the hijab, which covers only a woman’s hair and neck, was banned in public offices. They were allowed again after his ouster by the revolution in 2011.
Tunisia made fighting terrorism a priority after the attack at the Bardo National Museum in 2015, which killed 22 people, and the attack at a beach resort in Sousse the same year, which killed 38 people, most of them tourists.
