Egypt

New secular party to 'challenge religious dominance'

Mada Masr

A new political party, the Egyptian Secular Party (ESP), has been proposed to challenge what the founders see as the dominance of religious institutions over the Egyptian state, and to call for the writing of a secular constitution.

The party’s main principles include abolishing all articles related to the Islamic nature of the state in the Constitution, including Article 2, which stipulates that Sharia is the main source of legislation. The party proposes the reform of the legal system to include civil marriage and a secular personal status law.

Hesham Ouf, the party’s founder, told Mada Masr that the group’s aim is to encourage the separation of religion from politics and the state. He explained that Egypt has suffered from attempts to impose a theocratic state under the governance of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“The Brotherhood was acting as if their people were God’s chosen nation. The conflict between the theocratic and secular state was settled ages ago in the civilized world. Religion is only inside the mosque and the church,” he explained. His party calls for equality between all citizens, with no discrimination due to gender, religion, race or color, Ouf added.

Ouf and the party’s other co-founders are in the process of collecting the 5,000 endorsements required by the Political Parties Affairs Committee to officially register. He says now is the optimal time to establish such a party, given what he describes as the growing role of Al-Azhar, particularly since the removal of former President Mohamed Morsi from power in July 2013.

“We believe Al-Azhar should stay as a religious institution tasked with fatwa, preaching and jurisdiction. Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb should not enjoy the powers he has now. He has been intervening to ban books, television shows and movies. Al-Azhar has become a state within the state,” Ouf claimed.

On April 23, the privately owned channel Al-Qahera wal Nas pulled off air its contentious show “With Islam” following pressure from Al-Azhar. The show was presented by preacher Islam al-Beheiry, who reportedly disseminated religious views that run counter to the core beliefs propagated by Al-Azhar. The supreme religious institution filed a complaint against Beheiry and the channel.

The party calls for abolishing religious education and directing the financial support currently given by the state to Al-Azhar University and associated schools to reform secular education for all. Ouf argues that the state is neglecting other sectors in order to support Al-Azhar’s hegemony.

Ouf acknowledges that wider society may largely oppose these ideas, but believes the party will challenge the common use of the term “secular.” He believes that Egyptians were not properly introduced to secularism in the right manner.

The party was put under the spotlight when the privately owned newspaper Al-Watan published a report about the founders, labeling them as atheists in its main print headline on Wednesday and online on Thursday. In the report, Al-Watan claimed it had accessed a secret Facebook group for the party’s founder, on which there were allegedly calls for the promotion of atheism.

Talk show host Khairy Ramadan slammed the party on his daily show, “Momken,” broadcast on the privately owned channel CBC, saying “it is not the right time” to call for a secular state.

Ouf said he and his colleagues do not want to enter into a religious tug of war, but will not prevent atheists from joining the party.

“As a party, we do not differentiate between people based on their 

religion, as we view it as a personal bond with God that we should not be involved in,” he explained.

A campaign against atheists has intensified recently, prompting criticism from human rights groups. In January, activist Karim al-Banna was sentenced to three years in prison for contempt of religion. In December 2014, authorities shut down a downtown café believed to be a hub for atheist gatherings. In March 2014, an Alexandria-based police official vowed to arrest a group of atheists in the coastal city after they made a television appearance.

This was preceded with a campaign by Al-Azhar and the Endowments Ministry to “save youth from atheism.” During the campaign, Al-Azhar concluded that there were 866 atheists in Egypt as part of a survey conducted to assess the level of atheism in the country.

Despite the obstacles, Ouf is hopeful that he and his colleagues would be able to register the party.

“The Constitution bans religious political parties, yet there are religious political parties operating,” he argued. “Why would the committee then ban a secular political party, established in accordance with the Constitution?"

via www.madamasr.com

A French Muslim girl was kicked out of class because her skirt was too long

How some can go totally overboard. 

The Washington Post

A visitor trying on a headscarf on a seller's stand during the 32nd Annual Meeting of France's Muslims, at Le Bourget Exhibition center, north of Paris, April 3, 2015. (THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)

According to French media reports, a 15-year-old French Muslim girl was banned from her class twice for wearing a skirt that was too long, and therefore supposedly a conspicuous display of religion. France's state secularism has led to very strict laws prohibiting students from wearing overtly religious symbols in institutions of education.

The student, identified as Sarah, already apparently removed her headscarf before entering the school, in accordance with French law. But her long skirt was deemed a "provocation," and potential act of protest.

"The girl was not excluded, she was asked to come back with a neutral outfit," a local official in the northeastern French town of Charleville-Mezieres, near the border with Belgium, told the AFP.

The news sparked an outcry on social media, with commentators remarking on the hypocrisy and bigotry lurking beneath Sarah's treatment. On Twitter, the hashtag #JePorteMaJuppeCommeJeVeux ("I wear my skirt as I like") trended.

Continue reading here. 

via www.washingtonpost.com

Manufacturing consent and dissent

People mourn at the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial Museum in Yerevan, April 21, 2015. (Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili)

It seems that nothing comes free of price.  “What’s in it for me?” is the name of the game in every political action or reaction as countries weigh in on gains or losses before siding with or going against a crisis.

The centennial commemoration of the Armenian Genocide is a case in point. National interests, prioritizing gains and calculating repercussions, trump humanitarian and what should be crystal clear choices. States, void of any true emotions towards the massacre that befell the Armenian people, side either with Armenia or with Turkey. Their choices have little do with the deaths of 1.5 million out of the 2 million Armenians existing then.

Armenia wants the world to consider the atrocities a genocide. Turkey says the numbers are inflated and that it, too, lost many of its citizens in the same confrontations. But calling it a genocide or not is not the real issue; what is is whether countries gain or lose from siding with Armenia or Turkey. Calling a spade a spade doesn’t construe much anymore. And a yay camp versus a nay camp began to shape. 

During his presidential campaign, President Obama, to lure the Armenian vote, called the Armenian catastrophe a genocide; today President Obama reneged on his word, and the White House opted for a more allowing word: atrocities. Its statement says, “The president … repeatedly acknowledged as historical fact that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire”; but conspicuously did not use the word genocide.

The US chose to side with the Turks on this one. Gains? Turkey is a Nato ally and a key player in the Middle East quagmire. “The damage it would cause to US relations with Turkey at a critical time, notably when Washington needs Ankara’s help in fighting the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, would far outweigh the immediate benefits. The safety of US diplomats and troops in Turkey was also a consideration, the officials said.”

Turkey finds an ally in Britain, too, which continues to avoid the "g-word" to avoid angering Turkey. But the real answer to Britain's avoidance of the word genocide is "less than 30 miles up the road from Tarsus: the massive Incirlik airbase, used by the US air force and the RAF. From here, US and UK forces are easily deployed throughout the Middle East."

Pope Francis called what happened to the Ottoman-Armenians during World War I the “first genocide of the 20th century.” While Germany used the term genocide for the first time this year risking a diplomatic rupture with Ankara in a significant stance for Turkey's biggest trade partner, the European Union, Israel didn’t fearing repercussions from Turkey calling it a "national tragedy" instead of a genocide. When Austria declared the atrocities against the Armenians a genocide, Turkey issued a statement saying it would leave “permanent stains on Turkish-Austrian friendship” and recalled its ambassador from Vienna.

Then Egypt’s ambassador to Armenia chose to be absent from the commemoration event. Though the reasons are unclear, some have speculated that it is Egypt’s way of “flirting” with Turkey. (@Nervana_1) Pope Tawadross II, Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, did attend though, as did a delegation of 70 Armenian Egyptians. 

It’s all in the timing, interests, and friend-versus-foe choices. 

The same would apply to the Saudi attack on Yemen. The decision to condemn or hail the attack was a manufactured one, decided beforehand through previous unrelated events. Countries supporting Iran condemned, countries favouring Saudi hailed. Hence, Syria condemned while Egypt hailed. Both Syria and Egypt had very little choice in the matter. It was payback time for both countries. 

While Canada chose to stay out of this one, the US joined with logistical aid. Why Canada chose to support the US in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan and not in Yemen will become clearer as time goes by. 

Where is Yemen in all this? Though Yemen is the one bombed, this war has very little to do with Yemen itself.   As some put it, this war is an attempt to “prevent thaw between Iran and the West.” In fact, “The real reason behind the attacks is one and only one word: Iran.”

Though affecting the whole world, the UN Security Councils rulings on strifes amongst countries is no better. While Permanent Members decisively oppose or accept resolutions, focusing on allegiances, countries, some of which consider themselves members of the Non-Aligned Movement, vote for or against a resolution with affiliations and interest in mind.

Manufacturing consent or dissent is the dominant approach to all the misgivings we live in. 

*The term “Manufacturing Consent” was borrowed from Noam Chomsky’s book (1988) and documentary film (1992) by the same title.

Consenting-to-a-kiss

Changing times, changing times. Even the fact that such a discussion is taking place is a move in the right direction. 

Alahram Weekly

Sexual problems are legion in contemporary Egypt, sometimes ruining marital relationships, writes Gamal Nkrumah

“When you see a person, do you just concentrate on their looks? It’s just a first impression. Then there’s someone who doesn’t catch your eye immediately, but you talk to them and they become the most beautiful thing in the world.” – Brad Pitt

---

“Sex is a taboo subject in Egypt. Mothers do not discuss sexual matters with their daughters, nor do fathers talk with their sons. On the day of the dukhla [literally “entry” in Arabic], the day when newlyweds consummate their marriage, it is all reduced to a question of trial and error,” Madiha Al-Safti, a lecturer in sociology at the American University in Cairo, told Al-Ahram Weekly.

“Youngsters get whatever little they know by discussions with their friends, classmates or, these days, via the Internet.”

The almost ubiquitous assumption that a bride is supposed to be a virgin is still pervasive in contemporary Egypt.

“It all boils down to the stifling traditions of yesteryear and a reluctance to introduce sex education,” Al-Safti says. The venerable tradition that the bride be a virgin was adjudged to survive to eternity. A virgin may consent to kiss, but no further venturesome behaviour is permitted before marriage. In more ways than one, Egypt is still very Victorian.

“Ernestina wanted a husband, wanted Charles to be that husband, wanted children; but the payment she vaguely divined she would have to make for them seemed excessive,” wrote John Fowles in his 1969 bestseller, the Victorian-era romance The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

A character in Fowles celebrated novel, Ernestina, is used as a metaphor representing a sexually repressed, and sexually ignorant, Victorian woman. There are many Egyptian Ernestinas.

When I first read Fowles’s novel years ago, Egypt came to mind. “Young men, often the sons of the affluent elite, engage in pre-marital sex by sleeping with prostitutes. However, like Ernestina, their wives invariably have never had sex and do not know what exactly is expected of them. Virgins are not on the verge of extinction. They are ‘good girls’ in the traditional sense, and hence cannot please a man the way a prostitute does,” Al-Safti says.

“The husbands often expect their brides to know how to please a man. And some men do not know how to arouse a woman. They only think about themselves in a selfish fashion, not taking the bride’s desires and fears into consideration. It is a very sensitive matter.

“Neither bride nor groom really knows how to cope with the challenging experience. Brides are often intimidated by the experience, but grooms too often have bouts of self-doubt,” she adds.

“Husbands must listen more attentively to the complaints of their wives, and especially when it comes to sex, a topic that in a conservative country like Egypt is a taboo subject,” says Heba Kotb, perhaps Egypt’s most controversial and sought-after sex therapist.

Kotb is host of the popular “The Big Talk”, a sexual advice show that is broadcast on the Egyptian satellite television channel Al-Mehwar. She is the first licenced sexologist in the country. Women’s sexual rights in Islam is a subject that often crops up on her talk shows, being the inspiration behind her understanding of human sexuality.

Kotb has no qualms about discussing prickly sexual subjects, and for this reason she has come under fire from several distinguished Muslim clerics, including Sheikh Youssef Al-Badri, a strong supporter of female genital mutilation (FGM), which he insists is needed to protect a woman’s chastity.

Read on here. 

via weekly.ahram.org.eg

El Etehadeya presidential palace massacre

Worth reading. Eman Nabih's blog

Youm7 newspaper published on 21/4/2015, the reasons of the court verdict related to the case known in the Egyptian media as “Etihadeya presidential palace massacre“. The violent event took place on the 5th and the 6 of December 2012 in front of the presidential palace in Heliopolis Cairo. Resulted the death of 10 and more than 800 severe injuries.

Demonstrations took place due to the Muslim Brotherhood constitutional decree issued against the law and the constitution, providing the former president of full executive and legislative power above the law.

The court sentenced 20 years jail on the defendant Mohamed Morsi (former president of Egypt) and the rest of Muslim Brotherhood defendants.

The defendants used violence and illegal detention of the victims (demonstrators) and practiced physical torture on them. Thus, the court increased the penalty according to the law up to 20 years.

The court based the verdict on victims of torture testimonies, the republican guards and the former minister of Interior testimonies, who testified that they were given a direct order by the former president to deal with the demonstrators by absolute force.

FORMER AMBASSADOR OF EGYPT IN VENEZUELA YEHIA ZKARIA NEGM, HE GOT TORTURED BY MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IN FRONT OF ETIHADEYA PRESIDENTIAL PALACE 5 DECEMBER 2012

The court also based the verdict on the video tapes filmed by Muslim Brotherhood themselves, from the minute they entered the presidential palace area using force and weapons, till the capture and the torture of the peaceful demonstrators.

This specific court case evidences and particularly the video tapes, were filmed by the Muslim Brotherhood themselves. They filmed each other while attacking and torturing Egyptian demonstrators.

In addition, the decision of attacking the demonstrators was taken by the Muslim Brotherhood organization, after they held a meeting in their main head office in Cairo, and Mohamed Morsi was instructed to leave the presidential palace before the attack on demonstrators started, so he won’t be related to the attack. Especially after the ministry of interior and the republican guards refused his orders to disengage the demonstrations by force.

The republican guards chief testified that the defendant Asad Alshekha (Muslim brotherhood leader and was occupying the post of deputy chief of staff of the president), told him that the Muslim Brotherhood are going to disengage the demonstrations by force, using their own men.

The court explained in their verdict that the show of force and violence used by Muslim brotherhood resulted the deliberate killing of victims like Alhusseiny Abu Deif  (journalist) and also the deliberate killing of other two persons, Mohamed Sonoussy and Mahmoud Mohamed Ibrahim.

Excerpt. Read on here. 

via www.emannabih.com

'Sharia compliant' sex shop to open in Mecca selling halal sex toys for Muslims

Quite bewildering— The Independent

El Asira, founded in Amsterdam, is branching out to Saudi Arabia

A “Sharia compliant” sex shop is reportedly set to open in Mecca selling halal products and toys.

El Asira, an erotic brand originating in Amsterdam, is branching out to Islam’s holiest city in Saudi Arabia, visited by millions of Muslims a year on the “hajj” pilgrimage.

Founder Abdelaziz Aouragh announced his ambition last year but now the shop is almost ready to open, Morocco-based website Alyaoum24 reported. 

Muslim clerics and Saudi sheikhs have reportedly been consulted to ensure the business complies with local laws and customs.

“The products we're putting on the market have nothing to do with blow-up dolls or vibrators,” Mr Aouragh told the AFP news agency.

“It's not about the sex act, it's what's going on around it. Our products increase the atmosphere and heighten feelings of sensuality.”

Saudi women, forbidden to drive, board a taxi in Riyadh

Women's freedoms are severely restricted in Saudi Arabia and Islamic codes of behaviour and dress are strictly enforced but El Asira says it strives to lead to "more admiration and love for women" by improving marital relationships.

Its website describes all products as “Sharia compliant” and claims they can “provide a deeper meaning to sexuality, sensuality and even spirituality”.

via www.independent.co.uk

Egypt's former president Mohamed Morsi sentenced to 20 years in prison

Via The Guardian, Jared Malsin and agencies in Cairo

Cairo court’s sentence over killing of hundreds of protesters in 2012 comes as ousted leader faces two other trials  

Egypt’s former president Mohamed Morsi has been sentenced to 20 years in prison over the killing of demonstrators outside his palace in 2012, the first verdict to be issued against the country’s first freely elected leader.

Morsi, who was elected president the year after Egypt’s 2011 revolution, was removed by the military in 2013 after an acrimonious year in office. Tuesday’s verdict stemmed from deaths during violent clashes between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and protesters who opposed Morsi in December 2012.

The verdict and sentence were issued during a brief hearing in a crowded courtroom in a police academy on the outskirts of Cairo. The defendants included several senior leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the same verdict, Morsi and 14 co-defendants were acquitted of a murder charge for which they could have faced the death penalty. The former president was convicted of inciting his supporters to use violence and detain and torture opposition demonstrators.

His supporters were outraged. “His trial has been a travesty of justice, which has been scripted and controlled by the government and entirely unsupported by evidence,” Amr Darrag, a senior figure from the Muslim Brotherhood and a former minister under Morsi, said in a statement in Istanbul reported by Reuters. “They want to pass a life sentence for democracy in Egypt.”

Continue reading here. 

via www.theguardian.com

Egypt strikes Islamic texts from schools, angering Salafists

Al Monitor, by Ayah Aman

Students attend a class on the first day of their new school year at a government school in Giza, south of Cairo, Sept. 22, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany) 

While the state views the decision — which will omit some religious texts and passages on historical Islamic figures — as a way to counter radical ideologies and fight extremism, the Salafist movements have deemed it a war on Islam.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb announced the decision in a press statement following a meeting he headed with the Curriculum Development Committee on April 11. He said, “We will not allow any academic textbooks that would instill myths and superstition in the minds of students.”

The Curriculum Development Committee was formed March 4 to review curricula and remove any outdated texts that incite violence.

On March 18, Egypt’s Minister of Education Moheb al-Rafei issued a decision to remove some courses in accordance with the recommendations of the Curriculum Development Committee following the review of Arabic textbooks from the first grade to the third secondary grade. The move called for revising and amending topics that could incite violence or extremism or refer to political or religious inclinations or any other concepts that could be dangerously exploited.

Lessons on Saladin and chapters of the story of Gen. Uqba Ibn Nafi were among the first to be removed from Arabic-language classes, for addressing historical Islamic figures, causing much controversy. Some Quranic and religious provisions were also removed from the Islamic curriculum.

This decision was not limited to general educational material, extending to include Al-Azhar's curricula, which primarily focuses on jurisprudence and Sharia. Many courses have been omitted, including a fatwa on “eating prisoners’ flesh,” as well as parts of the hadith that could be misinterpreted such as the Prophet Muhammad’s saying, “I was ordered to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah.” The ministerial decision also called for new educational material on terrorism, atheism and coups d’etat.

The Salafist Dawa Party (Salafist Call) and Nour Party rejected and condemned the ministry’s decision to remove the stories of Uqba Ibn Nafi and Saladin. Nour leader Younis Makhioun said in a March 21 statement, “Omitting these two stories is an assault on our history, an alteration of our identity and a surrender to 

our enemies.”

The uproar has reignited the conflict between Salafists and the government, which had previously decided in October to add a secondary school course describing the Nour and other religious parties as unconstitutional.

Continue reading here. 

via www.al-monitor.com

Egypt discovers record-length smuggling tunnel

Al Monitor, by Ahmed Fouad

Smoke rises after a house is blown up during a military operation by Egyptian security forces in the Egyptian city of Rafah, near the border with the southern Gaza Strip, Nov. 6, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)  

CAIRO — “Tunnels are gates for terrorism and external support of terrorism from Gaza to Sinai,” security expert Maj. Gen. Khalid Okasha said when asked about the news of the buffer zone expansion on the border between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The news came after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi — temporarily in charge of the legislative power until the election of parliament — issued a law on April 12 to maximize to life imprisonment (25 years) the penalty of digging tunnels linking the Egyptian border to any other state. Also, using such tunnels or being aware of their existence without reporting them is to be punished.

Okasha told Al-Monitor, “Expanding the buffer zone, maximizing tunnel digging and using sanctions will restore stability to Sinai and decrease the amount of terrorist attacks that often enter into Egypt from the Gaza border."

On Oct. 25, 2014, the Egyptian state issued a decision to remove all facilities, farms and houses located in the buffer zone (500 meters, or 0.3 miles, west of the Gaza Strip) and vowed to compensate the population by providing them with other houses or money to buy a house. On Nov. 14, another decision was issued to expand the buffer zone to 1,000 meters (0.6 miles) west of Gaza and rid that area of all establishments and houses. The same procedures were to be followed and house owners were promised compensation.

According to the local council of the North Sinai province, the total value of the compensation amounts to 364 million Egyptian pounds ($47.6 million), which will be divided over the two phases of the buffer zone expansion works: the first phase, 500 meters containing 837 houses; and the second phase, 500 meters containing 1,220 houses.

While the armed forces are about to finish removing the houses, Sinai activist Eid Marzouki said in an interview on Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr that 90% of the displaced people in Sinai are yet to receive compensation.

The importance of the buffer zone expansion is becoming clear in light of the armed forces’ announcement on March 29 of the discovery of a secret tunnel connecting Gaza to Sinai and stretching along 2.8 kilometers (1.7 miles) into Egyptian territory. This tunnel is the longest tunnel yet to be discovered by the armed forces.

Nasser Khaled, an infrastructure expert and soil mechanical engineer, told Al-Monitor that digging such a tunnel requires modern equipment and a large number of workers to dig either in rocks or loose land. He said the process takes four to five months, while the average cost of the required equipment is no less than about 10 million Egyptian pounds ($1.3 million).

Khaled said that most of the manufacturers of such equipment do not authorize sales except to states and major engineering and construction companies. He added that the primitive or manual drilling of such tunnels may take years.

Amr Radwan, an infrastructure expert and soil mechanical engineer told Al-Monitor that it is difficult to determine how long it takes to dig such a tunnel unless the nature of the used equipment is identified and the number of workers as well as the specifications of the rocks and soil are known. He said those operations are risky because of loose rocks where drilling could lead to the quick collapse of a tunnel.

The information about the costly equipment, the fact that they are only sold to specific parties and the importance of identifying the nature of the rocks before drilling are factors that indicate that construction companies or experts may be secretly supporting the drilling operations.

Read on here. 

via www.al-monitor.com

How people in Muslim countries prefer women to dress in public

Thank to Anees Ahmed Khan for sending this. I believe that it is a woman's choice, but these percentages tell me it isn't. 

Pew Research Center, by Jacob Poushter

An important issue in the Muslim world is how women should dress in public. A recent survey from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research conducted in seven Muslim-majority countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey), finds that most people prefer that a woman completely cover her hair, but not necessarily her face. Only in Turkey and Lebanon do more than one-in-four think it is appropriate for a woman to not cover her head at all in public.

The survey treated the question of women’s dress as a visual preference. Each respondent was given a card depicting six styles of women’s headdress and asked to choose the woman most appropriately outfitted for a public place. Although no labels were included on the card, the styles ranged from a fully-hooded burqa (woman #1) and niqab (#2) to the less conservative hijab (women #4 and #5). There was also the option of a woman wearing no head covering of any type.

Overall, most respondents say woman #4, whose hair and ears are completely covered by a white hijab, is the most appropriately dressed for public. This includes 57% in Tunisia, 52% in Egypt, 46% in Turkey and 44% in Iraq. In Iraq and Egypt, woman #3, whose hair and ears are covered by a more conservative black hijab, is the second most popular choice.

In Pakistan, there is an even split (31% vs. 32%) between woman #3 and woman #2, who is wearing a niqab that exposes only her eyes, while nearly a quarter (24%) choose woman #4. In Saudi Arabia, a 63%-majority prefer woman #2, while an additional 11% say that the burqa worn by woman #1 is the most appropriate style of public dress for women.

In several countries, substantial minorities say it is acceptable for a woman to not cover her hair in public. Roughly a third (32%) of Turks take this view, as do 15% of Tunisians. Nearly half (49%) in Lebanon also agree that it is acceptable for a woman to appear in public without a head covering, although this may partly reflect the fact that the sample in Lebanon was 27% Christian. Demographic information, including results by gender, were not included in the public release of this survey.

Even as publics in many of the surveyed countries express a clear preference for women to dress conservatively, many also say women should be able to decide for themselves what to wear. This attitude is most prevalent in Tunisia (56%), Turkey (52%) and Lebanon (49%) – all countries where substantial percentages are open to women not covering their heads in public. But nearly as many in Saudi Arabia (47%) also say a women should be free to choose how she dresses. Smaller, but sizable percentages agree in Iraq (27%), Pakistan (22%) and Egypt (14%). What the survey leaves unanswered is whether respondents think social or cultural norms will guide women in their choice to wear more conservative or less conservative attire in public.

via www.pewresearch.org