On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year.Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented. For the next two weeks, Habib reported to school in the southern Egyptian village of Sheik Fadl every day in her uniform, without the head covering, only to be turned back by teachers.
One day, Habib heard the school loudspeakers echoing her name and teachers with megaphones leading a number of students in chants of ”We don’t want Ferial here,” the teenager told The Associated Press.After the revolution, there are no administration and no officials to go to. The system is lax and there is no supervision from the ministry,” he told AP. ”If things were under control, extremists would not have a free hand to act as they wish.”
Habib was finally allowed to attend last Tuesday.
”I am happy I did what I want and that no one can force something on me. But I am afraid of the students and the teachers,” she told AP. ”The teachers are not normal with me and I am sure they will give me low grades at the end of the year.”
Hossam Bahgat, head of the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, which tracks religious discrimination and other civil rights issues, said he had not seen a case like Habib’s before. ”We know that there is pressure on Muslim girls to put on the higab, especially in secondary school, not from the administration but from the girls.”
He said some Muslim girls in general put on the veil to distinguish themselves from Christians.
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