First Hijab-Wearing Anchor in Algeria’s TV
Najwi Jeddi presented a bulletin on a public television channel this week to become the first woman in the North African country to read the news on TV while wearing the hijab, RT Arabic reported.
It is unprecedented because since the country’s independence in 1962, the Algerian TV’s policy has been banning the presence of hijab-wearing women in different TV channels.
There are no laws prohibiting women from wearing the hijab on television. Some have attributed the absence of hijab-wearing women on television to personal decisions made by those in senior positions.
In 2012, a journalist named Nasira Mazhoud was suspended from presenting the news bulletin after she chose to wear the hijab.
There were other Muslim women who were suspended for the same reason, including Iman Mahjoubi, Huriya Harath, Susan bin Habib and Naima Majir.
Algeria’s Quran TV has been the only official TV channel in the country allowing the presence of hijab-wearing women.
