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Public sector workers in Algeria banned from wearing full-face veils at work
Prime Minister Ahmed Ouayhia called it an issue of 'security and communication'
The new rule has been met with both positive and negative reactions
Algeria is a Muslim-majority country, but most women do not wear niqab

Published: 03:36 EDT, 24 October 2018 | Updated: 05:04 EDT, 24 October 2018

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Algerian authorities has banned banned female public sector employees from wearing full-face veils, or niqabs, at work.

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouayhia publicized the decision in a letter to ministers and regional governors in the Muslim-majority country last Thursday.

Civil servants, he wrote, need to 'observe the rules and requirements of security and communication within their department'.

The Algerian Prime Minister said civil servants needed to 'observe requirements of security and communication' and could therefore not cover their faces in the workplace (file photo)

He said public sector workers needed to be able to be 'physically identifiable' while in the workplace.

The ban has been met with both positive and negative reactions on social media, with some hailing it as progressive while others called it an attempt to control women and what they choose to wear.

According to Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the ban was blasted by an Islamist MP as a 'declared war on Islam'.

However, another MP named Adda Fellahi declared his support for the new law, saying the niqab is 'a social and jurisprudence issue and has nothing to do with decency and chastity,' according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouayhia publicized the decision in a letter to ministers and regional governors in the Muslim-majority country last Thursday

Algeria has been split between moderate and more radical forms of Islam since it was plunged into years of civil war in 1992, when a military-backed government cancelled elections that an Islamist party was poised to win.

Most Algerian women do not wear the niqab, a custom imported from more traditionally conservative Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, but the decision is likely to be criticized by Algeria's Salafists minority.

The Salafists endorse Saudi's strict Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam and oppose the more mainstream Sufi Islam that dominates Algeria and other North African countries.

Violence has dramatically diminished since the war petered out around the turn of the millennium, but a hardcore of armed jihadist groups continue to launch attacks, mainly in remote areas.