EGYPTIAN HIGH COURT UPHOLDS BAN ON FACE VEILS IN SCHOOL.

Byline: Mae Ghalwash Associated Press 

In a dusty schoolyard, the principal told the 14-year-old student to remove her veil - which revealed only her dark, almond-shaped eyes - or risk being expelled.

She did so, reluctantly, and blushed in front of her male teachers. At the end of the school day, she quickly donned the veil again. It is a routine she has repeated every day for two years.

``I had no choice,'' Hanan Abdel-Maqsoud, now 16, said from beneath an emerald-green shroud. But, she added, ``I didn't see how my veil would hurt anyone in any way.''

Under a new ruling that has outraged the country's powerful Islamic fundamentalists, Hanan will have to continue the routine she so despises.

On Saturday, Egypt's Constitutional Court upheld a 1994 government decree that bans schoolgirls from wearing the niqab, the conservative, full-length veil that covers everything but the eyes.

It was a victory for Education Minister Hussein Bahaa Eddine, who has struggled to counter what he sees as the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt's crumbling school system.

In recent years, he has fired hundreds of teachers he felt were subversive, campaigned to ban the niqab and sought to limit the use of the less conservative and much more popular hijab, which covers a woman's hair but leaves her face exposed.

For Abdel-Maqsoud, the ruling intruded on a private matter.

``This is not fair,'' she said at a Cairo bus stop on her way home. ``They are denying me my personal freedom.''

In the West, the veil is largely seen as yet another example of women being relegated to second-class status in the Muslim world - a vivid illustration of men imposing their will on women.

Indeed, Muslim activists often consider the veil a key part of their campaign to create a more Islamic society.

But there's a flip side: the woman's choice.

While some Muslim women view the veil as oppressive, others see it as an expression of their religious beliefs. Some say it even allows them to avoid harassment in the crowded streets or at work, and they discount any pressure to wear it.

The 1994 government decree required that parents give written permission for their daughters to wear the hijab at school. The decree specifically prohibited wearing the full-length niqab.

Fundamentalist lawyers argued that the decree was unconstitutional because it violated Islamic dictates.

The Egyptian constitution relies in large part on Sharia, or codified Islamic law, which many believe dictates that girls must wear the hijab after puberty. Some scholars believe that the codes also mandate the niqab, but that remains hotly debated.

Lawyers raised cases on behalf of dozens of girls across the country. Some cases were won. But Saturday's verdict in the Constitutional Court was final, overturning those cases and setting a new precedent.

The court ruled that the ban is constitutional because school uniforms - which the girls must wear instead of the veil - is modest and therefore in keeping with Islamic traditions.

``How can they have faith in the system after this? Next they will rule that the Koran is unconstitutional,'' bemoaned Abdel-Halim Mandour, a leading lawyer in veil cases.

Secular activists were relieved but not encouraged.

In recent years, fundamentalist lawyers have used the same courts to win a number of cases against artists, writers and intellectuals whose work they consider counter to Islam.

In one ruling, a court ordered a professor to divorce his wife because his work essentially meant he had renounced his faith. Under Islamic law, a non-Muslim cannot marry a Muslim woman.

``There are only a few judges left who are liberal or objective,'' said Mohamed Said Ashmawi, a former judge who has been attacked by fundamentalists for his secular views.

This ruling, Ashmawi said, ``was a matter of luck.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Students in Islamic face veils, or ``niqabs,'' waitto cross a street in downtown Cairo in the wake of the school veil ban being upheld.

Associated Press