Hijab Selfie, a counter-movement to a call by presenter Sherif Choubachy for women who wear the Islamic head covering to remove it in Tahrir Square, has mobilized men and women.
Dalia Attia, the founder of the campaign, had encouraged women to go to Tahrir Square with friends to take a selfie wearing hijab to prove that they love wearing it and they don’t want to take it off.
“I felt humiliated when Sherif Choubachy said that 90% of veiled women are whores,” Attia tweeted on April 20.
The idea has attracted support from Muslim and Christian women; some men have also indicated their support, and have coined the slogan “Wear a cap and support hijab,” with many saying they will participate in taking a selfie.
Egyptian journalist Sherif Choubachy called for women who wear the Muslim veil to join in a protest in Tahrir Square to remove their veils in the first week of May, in an event like that of Hoda Shaarawi in 1923, in which she publicly removed her veil in Alexandria, Youm7 reported April 12.
Choubachy said that hijab is against freedom and that “political Islam” is the reason of its outbreak.
“If your call is a reaction to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), it’s more appropriate to be from men; so why don’t you ask men not to fast in Ramadan and eat in Tahrir Sq. so as to drive the MBs crazy,” Attia asked, responding to Choubachy, in a phone call to “Sbahak Masry program on April 20.
Attia started tweeting to promote the campaign April 17 and her friends and supporters have started to retweet it since then.
On the side line of Attia’s campaign, mothers have started to take photos of their daughters wearing hijab and tweet it or post it on the Facebook in support of the idea.
“Choubachy urges that Hijab leads to backwardness and narrow-mindedness and women have to be liberated from it, and I assure him that women think with their brains, and not their hair,” Attia told Yaqeen News Network April 28.
She added that it is “impossible” that a call like this be accepted and welcoming in an Eastern and religious society, referring to Choubachy’s call, adding that she support’s any woman’s personal choice to wear the veil or take it off.
Per the 2013 Protest Law, all political gatherings must obtain permission from the Ministry of Interior, and despite requesting a permit on April 27, the ministry refused to allow Hijab Selfie for “security reasons,” Attia said May 2.
“The campaign came with its targeted fruit, as Choubachy declined his call to protest and our echo will continue in the free brains that refuse humiliation and the religious and moral abuse,” Attia added in her statement.
Abbas Shouman, the deputy to Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam, condemned Choubachy’s statements and described it as an “assault” to a woman’s freedom and dignity, and likened the call to asking Muslims not to pray.
Choubachy declined his call to take off the Hijab saying that he had not filed for any permissions for protests, Youm7 reported April 27.
