Born in Tunisia where she grew up, Professor Pro-Laïcité Nadia El Mabrouk leads a tireless struggle to prohibit the veil or hijab in Canada, because for her, it is a symbol of “religious fundamentalism”.
In Canada, a debate is currently causing noise to prohibit any religious sign for teachers and police. Among the defenders of this pro-Laïcité law, the Tunisian professor, also having Canadian nationality, Nadia El Mabrouk, who considers, in fact, the wearing of the veil as the symbol of “religious fundamentalism”.
She claims to have lived, in Tunisia, the rise of “fundamentalist Islam”. “I saw my cousins start to veil. While I was thinking, a moment to veil myself, my father dissuaded me so as not to be embarked on this religious fundamentalism, ”she added.
“For me, displaying religious signs is to show a preference for a religion. It is not neutral, therefore. It does not come without proselytism. I do not expect the school to send religious standards, ”she explains to several Canadian media.
The professor explains that seeing teachers carry the veil “strikes her sensitivity” because the veil transmits according to her “a very bad image”, that of a “sexist” Islam.
Nadia El Mabrouk is a titular teacher in theoretical computer science at the University of Montreal. She testified in favor of the law adopted last year. This law prohibits, among other things, the wearing of religious signs to judges, police, prosecutors, prison guards and teachers, as part of their function.