Palestinian children attend a class at the UNRWA elementary school in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Gaza’s Hamas-controlled parliament has passed a law requiring separate classes for boys and girls in public and private schools from the fourth grade. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
For Immediate Release: The Middle East Foundation for Peace and Justice (MEFPJ) has expressed grave concern regarding the rapid deterioration of human rights in the Palestinian Arab controlled Gaza Strip. The Hamas controlled government has recently taken the step of banning all mixed gender education and imposing strict interpretations of Islamic law on the entire population.
This declaration follows a series of rules restricting women or requiring them to cover up in the traditional Islamic dress of long robes and headscarves.
Hamas has been running Gaza since its violent takeover of the coastal territory in 2007. The group advocates the establishment of an Islamic state in all of the Mideast, including Israel.
In addition to legislation, there has been mounting social pressure on Gaza girls and women to wear headscarves and robes. Earlier this year, a branch of Al-Aqsa University in the southern town of Khan Younis made it a requirement for all female students to wear robes in addition to headscarves.
Other edicts include bans on women smoking water pipes in public, riding on the backs of motorcycles or getting their hair done by male stylists. Last month, it barred girls and women from participating in a U.N.-sponsored marathon, prompting a U.N. aid agency to cancel the race.
Of additional concern, Police in Hamas-ruled Gaza have started grabbing young men with long or gel-styled spiky hair off the streets, bundling them into jeeps, mocking them and shaving their heads, two of those targeted and a rights group said Sunday.
It is the latest sign that the Islamic militants are imposing their strict practices on the population.
Hamas has been slowly forcing its fundamentalist interpretation of the religion on already conservative Gaza since it overran the territory in 2007, but the new crackdown on long hair and tight or low-waist pants – in several cases accompanied by beatings – appears to be one of the most aggressive phases of the campaign so far.
The crackdown began last week, and two of those targeted told The Associated Press they were rounded up in separate sweeps in Gaza City that included more than two dozen young men.
MEFPJ calls upon the International community and the United Nations to condemn escalating human rights violations in the Palestinian Arab controlled territories.
The Middle East Foundation for Peace & Justice 