cta-image

Donate

Donations from readers like you allow us to do what we do. Please help us continue our work with a monthly or one-time donation.

Donate Today
cta-image

Subscribe Today

Subscribe to receive daily or weekly MEMRI emails on the topics that most interest you.
Subscribe
cta-image

Request a Clip

Media, government, and academia can request a MEMRI clip or other MEMRI research, or ask to consult with or interview a MEMRI expert.
Request Clip
memri
Apr 15, 2015
Share Video:

Egyptian Journalist Calls for Women to Remove the Veil: 99% of Egyptian Whores Wear It

#4892 | 04:46
Source: Dream TV (Egypt)ON TV (Egypt)

Veteran Egyptian journalist Sharif Al-Shubashi recently called for a mass demonstration in Tahrir Square, during which women would remove their veils. In two interviews on Egyptian TV channels, Al-Shubashi talked about the campaign he had launched, saying that the decision to wear the hijab should be "a matter of personal liberty." The interviews aired on ON TV on April 15, 2015 and on Dream2 TV on April 18, 2015.

 

Following are excerpts:

 

 

Dream2 TV on April 18, 2015

 

 

Interviewer: [You claim] that 90% of the prostitutes wear the hijab

 

 

Sharif Al-Shubashi: This is a fact that is known to any police officer. A senior police officer, whose name I will not mention, called me on the phone and told me I was right. He said that they even wear the niqab, not just the hijab. This is the truth. There's a saying that goes: "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see." We don't want to see the truth. They are afraid and they use the hijab to look like [respectable women].

 

 

[…]

 

 

Interviewer: I'm afraid that you are leading us to reverse extremism. Some may claim that what you are saying is reverse ISIS ideology.

 

 

Sharif Al-Shubashi: As someone who is interested in this, you know that this is not an essential issue. What I would like to say is that the hijab is not some magic wand, which can transform a woman who is a liar or an embezzler into a pure, honorable, pious, and chaste woman.

 

 

[…]

 

 

Interviewer: Let's watch what you posted on your website, and then we will get to your colleague's comments.

 

 

[…]

 

 

Sharif Al-Shubashi: If the hijab is indeed a symbol of virtue, honor, and morality, how come all the female inmates in Egyptian prisons wear it? They did not go to prison because of all their good deeds. Yet all these murderers, thieves, and prostitutes wear the hijab. 99% of Egypt's prostitutes wear the hijab. What, a woman who takes to wearing the hijab transforms all of a sudden into a good, virtuous, and moral individual?! This is not the case. Absolutely not. This is not the case. Absolutely not. The hijab has come to embody the complexes and anxieties that resides in the mind of the man in his perception of the woman. Men believe that when their wives wear the hijab, they immediately turn into virtuous women.

 

 

[…]

 

 

I would like to say to every woman or girl in Egypt who wears the hijab: This is your personal liberty, but make sure that you wear it out of you absolute conviction that this was commanded by Allah. If, however, you wear it out of fear of your father, brother, or husband, I tell you to remove it, because Islam does not want you to wear the hijab out of fear.

 

 

[…]

 

 

ON TV April 15, 2015 [via the Internet]

 

 

Sharif Al-Shubashi: Since I am much older than you, I remember living and attending school and university in the 1950s and 1960s. My female colleagues did not know what the hijab was. None of us did. Throughout Egypt, not a single woman was wearing the hijab.

 

 

[…]

 

 

I believe that a woman has the personal liberty to make this decision. I will never pick up a rod – the kind used by school teachers, who beat girls on their heads, saying: Put on the hijab, bitches, or else I will fail you."

 

 

[…]

 

 

At least 70% of the girls are coerced to wear the hijab, or else they wear it out of fear or due to intimidation or threats. Husbands threaten to divorce their wives unless they wear the hijab. Fathers threaten not to allow their daughters to go to school or university.

 

 

[…]

 

 

I call for true liberty: a girl's freedom to decide whether to wear the hijab or not. We should not by hypocrites. In the past 30 years, we have witnessed moral and psychological terrorism of girls.

 

 

[…]

 

Share this Clip: