Egyptian Journalist Sharif Shubashi: Women Coerced to Wear the Hijab Are Better Off Without It

Egyptian journalist Sharif Shubashi said that women should have the freedom to choose whether or not to wear the hijab and that there is "a flaw in our society" if someone is considered an apostate for saying so. Speaking on the Egyptian LTC TV channel on April 24, he said that the religious discourse over the past 40 years, fueled by the "diabolical deal" according to which the state rules and the Muslim Brotherhood preaches in the mosques, has given rise to a "fanatic and closed society, in which people hate one another."

Sharif Shubashi: "I am not calling for a total removal of the hijab. This is a distortion of what I am saying. I am calling to remove the hijab... You can go back to everything I have written and to all my videos. I am talking about women who are coerced into wearing the hijab, women who are subject to pressure, and who face oppression, intimidation, and psychological terrorism. These women are better off without the hijab."

Interviewer: "Aren't you afraid of being labeled an infidel? Some people have already called to kill you, because they consider you to be an apostate, who encourages heresy."

Sharif Shubashi: "If someone is considered an apostate for calling for women to be free to choose whether or not to wear the hijab, then there is a flaw in our society.

[...]

"The religious discourse of the past 40 years has led to catastrophes. It has given rise to a fanatic and closed society, in which people hate one another – the Muslims hate the Copts, the poor hate the rich, we hate the Arabs who..."

Interviewer: "Do you consider the removal of the hijab to be part of the reform in religious discourse?"

Sharif Shubashi: "Of course. It is a part of it, however small. Why do I say this? Because since the religious movement began to gain power and to spread in society, in the early 1970s, when there was a diabolical deal in which the state said to the Muslim Brotherhood: 'You will be in charge of Islamic preaching, and we will rule... We will rule, and you will be preachers in the mosques...' Since then, [the Islamists] have been spreading their ideas. They have 'restarted' the minds of the Egyptians."