Tunis, Tunisia - Tunisia's religious affairs minister has criticized Muslim women's practice of wearing head scarves, saying it does not fit with the North African country's cultural heritage.
Aboubaker Akhzouri said the government of the moderate Muslim country also rejects Muslim tunics like those worn in Persian Gulf states and the practice of men wearing long beards.
"It's regrettable that we don't respect our specificity," he was quoted as saying in Assabah newspaper on Wednesday. He said the head scarf is "foreign" and "an intrusion," and recommended a traditional Tunisian Islamic tunic known as the jebbah.
Under a 1981 government order, Muslim head scarves are banned in Tunisian government offices and public schools, though the rule is not always applied rigorously. Some non-governmental groups have criticized the rule as a violation of Tunisians' civil rights.
Akhzouri denied that increasingly more Muslim women are turning to the head scarf. "On the contrary, the phenomenon is in decline ... progressively fading away," he said.
Tunisia, a nation of 10 million people wedged between Libya and Algeria, is considered a stalwart ally of the West and has been cracking down on Islamic militants for years. It also actively promotes gender equality. Tunisian women enjoy rights denied in many other Arab countries, and nearly 54 percent of its university students are female.
Muslims across the world were enraged when France decided last year to ban head scarves from public schools. The head scarf is also banned from universities and state offices in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, which Islamic leaders have vowed to overturn.