Tajikistan bans hijab and Eid holidays

Last Updated on June 22, 2024 9:22 am

The Central Asian Muslim country of Tajikistan has passed a bill banning the wearing of hijab by women and canceling the holidays of schools, colleges and government institutions on Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha, the two main religious festivals of Muslims.

On Thursday (June 20), the bill was passed by the members of the parliament in the upper house of the parliament of the former Soviet Union.

Earlier, the bill was passed by the lower house of parliament Majlishi Namoyandag on May 8.

“The culture of wearing the hijab or head covering is imported from the Middle East,” said a statement from the press center of a Muslim militia after the bill was passed by parliament on Thursday. This is not Tajikistan’s own culture. Moreover, this dress has a relationship with radicalism.

If anyone violates the law, the bill provides for heavy fines as punishment.

Since 2007, a campaign against the hijab, Islamic and western clothing, has started in Tajikistan. In the following years, an unwritten ban on the hijab was operating in the country. The local administrative authorities even made committees at the grassroots level to implement the ban.

Basically this step was taken to keep the culture, tradition and dress of Tajikistan alive. In 2017, on the National Day of Tajikistan, the government also called on the country’s women to avoid hijab and western clothes and wear clothes of their own culture of Tajikistan.

Source: Radio Free Europe