Tunisian consumer group sues minister over extremism threat

Kuwaiti cleric Nabil al-Awadi (C) denies call for under-age girls to wear the veil A new storm has erupted in Tunisia over visiting preachers as Egypt's exiled Wagdi Ghoneim has been accused of promoting female genital mutilation, while Kuwaiti cleric Nabil al-Awadi has caused a furore by openly calling for young schoolgirls to wear the veil.
The president of Ilaf Observatory for Consumer Protection, Abdeljalil Zahiri, says he has filed a lawsuit against Minister of Women's Affairs, Sihem Badi over her "failure to protect children from the threat of the fundamentalist thought being promoted inside educational facilities."
The observatory says Badi has wilfully turned a blind eye to the Koranic schools which have been spreading through Tunisia since the January 14 revolution, "exposing young people's minds to extremist ideas."
A number of officials at these schools have told Arabstoday that they teach the children about principles and love of country in addition to memorising the Koran and learning the values put forward in Hadiths.
The children are also taught songs, reading, writing and manual skills alongside other activities which "prepare the under-sixes to enter state primary schools," the sources say.
Arabstoday has also spoke to parents who send their children to these Koranic schools. They said that these establishments teach their children the fundamentals of religion and Sharia, entrench values and morals in them from a young age.
But another Tunisian camp rejects these schools and considers them to be "a commercial fashion in the name of the religion," especially after the rise of the Islamist Ennahda Movement. Religion, critics say, has become a way of normalising relations with power after the revolution.
Meanwhile over 80 members in Tunisia's National Constituent Assembly representing various political blocs have signed a memorandum condemning remarks by Kuwaiti preacher al-Awadi, who is currently visiting Tunisia. The document accuses him of promoting the veiling of young girls, a practice they described as "an assault on childhood and a crime against children."
A photograph posted on social networking website Facebook showing al-Awadi surrounded by dozens of veiled young girls has sparked uproar in Tunisia and instigated a campaign to ban visits by Gulf and other Middle Eastern preachers. The photograph was interpreted as falling under the heading of forcing young girls to wear the veil.
Responding to his critics who demanded his immediate deportation, al-Awadi said: "I never demanded that under-age girls wear the veil."