RABAT // Morocco has banned the production and sale of burkas – apparently for security reasons, local media reported on Tuesday.
There was no official announcement from the authorities but reports said the interior ministry order relating to full-face veils would take effect this week.
"We have taken the step of completely banning the import, manufacture and marketing of this garment in all the cities and towns of the kingdom," Le360 news site quoted a high-ranking interior ministry official as saying.
It said the measure appeared to be motivated by security concerns, “since bandits have repeatedly used this garment to perpetrate their crimes”.
Most women in Morocco, where the king favours a moderate version of Islam, prefer wearing headscarves that do not cover the face.
The niqab, which leaves the area around the eyes uncovered, is also worn in Salafist circles and in more conservative parts of northern Jordan.
In some commercial districts of Casablanca, the country’s economic capital, interior ministry officials on Monday conducted “awareness-raising campaigns with traders to inform them of this new decision,” the Media 24 website said.
In Taroudant, a town in southern Morocco, authorities ordered traders to stop making and selling burkas and to liquidate their stock within 48 hours, reports said.
Retailers in the northern town of Ouislane were said to have received similar instructions.
It was unclear if Morocco plans to follow in the footsteps of some European countries such as France and Belgium where it is illegal to wear full-face veils in public.
The reports were met with a muted response in the absence of official confirmation, though Salafists expressed concern that the measure could be expanded to include the niqab.
“Is Morocco moving towards banning the niqab that Muslim women have worn for five centuries?” Salafist sheikh Hassan Kettani wrote on Facebook.
“If true it would be a disaster.”
But MP Nouzha Skalli, a former family and social development minister, welcomed the ban as “an important step in the fight against religious extremism”.
The High Council of Oulemas, the country’s top religious authority, has yet to comment on the issue of banning burkas.
* Agence France-Presse
