07 December 2011

Tunisia's Religious Police

.... These self-appointed custodians of Islamic virtues are aggressively intervening in public life: They occupy mosques and Quranic schools, and are trying to impose on them imams with Salafist views. They are verbally and physically aggressive towards women who do not abide by their code of dress, they also physically and psychologically assault intellectuals and film makers.

Lately, they have come under the spotlight after they decided to forbid Professor Ikbal Gharbi, appointed by the government to the post of director of the religious radio station Zitouna FM, to enter her office.

The reason, according to them, was that Prof. Gharbi had no religious background, despite her being an eminent professor of at the Theological Zitouna University in Tunis. In reality, this committee objects to a woman being in charge of a religious radio station, and for Prof. Gharbi being known as a reformist with a modernist interpretation of the Quran. [Hudson New York] Read more