Indonesia university revokes niqab ban after criticism
Indonesian university whose ban on niqab made global headlines has reversed policy after criticism.
YOGYAKARTA (AFP) - An Indonesian university whose ban on niqab face veils made global headlines has reversed the policy following criticism that it trampled on personal choice.
Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Indonesia s cultural capital Yogyakarta issued the edict last week to more than three dozen niqab-wearing students -- and warned they could be expelled for non-compliance.
The school, which has about 10,000 students, had said the now-cancelled rule was aimed at countering religious extremism in the world s biggest Muslim majority country.
"The guidance concerning students using a face veil will be revoked in order to maintain an academic climate that is conducive to fairness," said a statement issued by the university at the weekend.
Backers of the new rules said wearing the full veil with a small slit for the eyes was not a religious obligation, but critics saw the anti-niqab appeal as impinging on individual rights.
Another school in Yogyakarta, Ahmad Dahlan University, has also urged students not to wear the niqab -- without penalty for non-compliance -- while several Indonesian universities have issued niqab bans in the past.
Although niqabs are common in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf states, they re rare in secular Indonesia, where around 90 percent of its 260 million people have traditionally followed a moderate form of Islam, and are often seen as an unwelcome Arab export.
Indonesia s reputation as a bastion of progressiveness and religious tolerance has recently been tested by a government push to outlaw gay and pre-marital sex.
The conservative lurch comes as once-fringe Islamic political parties move into the mainstream.
The niqab has been at the centre of a heated global debate over religious freedom and women s rights, with France the first European country to ban it in public spaces.
