Now the new-look news
TV studio in Egypt staffed exclusively by veiled women
WEARING veils and dressed in black from head to toe, these women are symbols of Egypt’s cultural revolution following the Arab Spring.
They are employees of Maria TV, a new satellite news channel that features only women wearing full Islamic attire.
Men are banned from the show, even on phone-ins, and all staff, including those behind the camera, also wear veils.
The channel’s first broadcast yesterday is one sign of the social change sweeping the country after last year’s uprising, which has resulted in a swing towards more hardline Islamic values.
Previously, even though Egypt was already a conservative and predominantly Muslim society, women covering their face with a niqab veil complained of being routinely discriminated against for jobs, especially on TV, as well as in education.
Female preacher El- Sheikha Safaa Refai, who heads Maria TV, claimed that the channel’s existence showed how far the country had come since the uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.
One of the station’s news anchors, Abeer Shahin, said: ‘It’s unfair to deal with veiled women as a standard religious housewife. She can be a doctor, a professor and an engineer.’
On the subject of wearing a niqab to read the news, she added: ‘I was told that it won’t work because of the body language. Well, the tone of my voice can convey my emotions and reactions.’
She said that she hoped that by appearing on TV in full Islamic dress, she could show people ‘that there are successful women wearing niqab’.