Tunis: Around 200 students and professors demonstrated in Tunisia's capital on Wednesday calling for an end to the standoff by ultraconservative Muslims at a nearby university.
For more than a month classes and exams at Manouba University's humanities department have been put on hold by a sit-in demanding students be allowed to attend class in the conservative face veil, the niqab.
"Science before the niqab," and "no to shackles, no to niqab, knowledge is free," read the signs of the demonstrators, who urged the minister of higher education to resolve the dispute so that classes could resume.
University policy prevents students from covering their faces during class.
The sit-in has been the latest crisis faced by Tunisia since it overthrew its long-serving dictator last year, who had aggressively promoted secular policies.
In his absence there has been a resurgence of ultraconservative Muslims known as Salafists. The department's dean, Habib Kazdaghli, attended the protest and said the people blocking classes weren't even university students.
