Tajikistan bans hijab, curbs Eid custom

Muslim-majority Tajikistan has banned the use of hijab (Arabic headcover for women), terming it an “alien garment”. Besides, the country has also banned ‘Idi’, the custom of children seeking money during Eid. At the same time, the Central Asian Muslim country scrapped the holidays of schools, colleges, and government institutions on Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha, the two main religious festivals of Muslims.

The move to prohibit the hijab in the Central-Asian nation is the latest in a series of measures by the government to promote a “secular” national identity.

With around 10 million Muslims, more than 96% of the Republic of Tajikistan follows various sects of Islam.

On Thursday, the bill was passed by the lawmakers in the upper house of the parliament of the former Soviet Union.

Terming the hijab as “an alien garment”, Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon gave his assent to the bill to regulate and prohibit the Arabic veil, reported AKIpress, the Bishkek-based news agency.

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