BBC: The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has said it is to ban male hairdressers from working in salons where women get their hair styled.
The announcement is part of a campaign by Hamas to introduce more Islamic customs to the Gaza Strip.
The Interior Ministry have said there will be legal consequences for anyone who disobeys the new rule, but they have not specified what they might be.
In Islamic tradition women cannot show their hair to men not in their family.
Since the Islamist movement took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, they have introduced a number of rules that move toward tightening customary Islamic restrictions on the way men and women interact.
But they have been patchily enforced and are not statutory laws.
Pressure
Women's underwear has been banned from display, and men must dress modestly when swimming in the sea.
Girls in school also have to wear long dresses.
The BBC's Jon Donnison in the Gaza Strip reports that human rights groups there are complaining that people's freedom is being restricted.
Hamas is coming under internal pressure to show their commitment to Islamic customs, it has been reported. [Source: BBC] | Thursday, March 04, 2010
