Press Release
Government of the People or the Government of Women's Associations?!
(Translated)

After the official Gazette issued government decree No. 208 dated 02 May 2020, related to the regulation of targeted lockdown measures which states in its tenth chapter "The following persons remain subject to general lockdown measures... - Pregnant women and mothers whose children under 15 ... " the Prime Minister issued a statement on 03/05/2020 stating that an error had leaked in the final drafting of the text, contrary to what was approved in the Council of Ministers and would be corrected by revising the decree and republishing it in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Tunisia.

Accordingly, government decree No. 257 for the year 2020 was issued on 3 May, on the revision of government decree No. 208 for the year 2020 dated 2 May 2020 related to the regulation of targeted lockdown measures which literally stated: “Chapter One - the provisions of the second article of the first paragraph are repealed from Chapter 10 of Government Decree No. 208 for the year 2020 dated 2 May 2020 related to the regulation of targeted lockdown measures and is compensated by the following: Chapter 10: First paragraph - second article (new): pregnant women Chapter 2 - A final paragraph to be added to the provisions of Chapter 10 from government decree No. 208 for the year 2020 dated 2 May 2020 related to the regulation of targeted lockdown measures, to state as follows: Chapter 10 (last paragraph): children under the age of 15 years to remain subject to the general lockdown measures”.

We, in the Women's Section of Hizb ut Tahrir / Wilayah Tunisia,

- We condemn the government's withdrawal of the exemption of mothers caring for children under the age of 15 from starting work, especially in the face of the closure of schools, kindergartens and nurseries, in total disregard for the best interests, security and protection of children.

- We condemn the government’s shaky hands, its fragile and irresponsible positions, its sacrifice of children's safety, and its inability to confront foreign-backed women's organizations that are committed to "equality", who are only interested in entrenching Western concepts and striking the provisions of Islam even at the expense of the interests of mothers and their children.

- We consider disgusting and repulsive that the deadly Coronavirus pandemic did not spare women of the injustice of the criminal secular regime, and continued to suffer from unjust laws and hardship of living, and it was proven by evidence that government’s measures do not take into account the circumstances of women but rather satisfy the irregular claims of the suspicious feminist movements, which are based on concepts and customs alien to the Ummah and the Islamic family life.

- We declare that we, as women, receive nothing from such parties except that which contradicts the innate nature of women and what responds to their basic needs, out of imposing ideas and concepts of the Kaffir West aiming to obliterate everything that might be related to Islam.

- We consider that what feminists rant about and what secular regimes espouse for them are nothing more than titles of illusion and a mirage that they try to separate women from their origin, based on some agreements and foreign bodies that work to demolish the fortress of the family, which remained an impenetrable dam to all attempts of invasion.

- We call on the government to abandon any form of living association that mimics Western society, and to have the courage to address the pressure of suspicious associations that have no purpose other than violating Islam.

- We call on the government to be accountable to its women and children subjects, and not to cause women suffer in this circumstance due to measures that subject them and their children to death measures that are incompatible with woman’s family responsibility, and do not strip her of being a mother and caretaker of her family.

Ustadha Hanan Khmeiri
Official Spokesperson for the Women’s Section of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Wilayah Tunisia