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Thursday, April 19, 2007 12:00 AM

Broadcasting from under a veil

Two Egyptian anchorwomen are fighting for the right to wear hijabs when they read the news.

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  • Thursday, April 19, 2007 12:45 PM

    the thing is

    I understand that this is a government rule on a state-run network, which is a different than our own privately-run network setup, but how many of our news anchors are allowed to wear explicitly religious accessories while reporting the news? While Muslims make up the majority of the Egyptian population, Islam certainly isn't the only religion in town. And while Egypt is a democracy in name only, it is a secular government. Having hijab-wearing news anchoring on state TV would be tantamount to endorsing one religion over the others. Maybe they don't have those types of concerns over there, but before saying "who would it hurt" consider what the news would be like here if all the anchors looked like they had come straight from the 700 club, or if the anchors in Italy all wore habits.

    Of course it could just be that the state-run TV station is like private stations and prefers their anchors with big hair to appeal to consumers.

    This reminds in some ways of the pharmacist controversy about whether or not they would be forced to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill. Both jobs are pretty clearly defined, they're serving the entire public, and the morals of the people performing those jobs shouldn't override their responsibilities.

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