UY I: Faculty of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences bans face veil

The Faculty of Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (FMBS) of the University of Yaounde I has banned the wearing of the veil within its campus.

The dean of the faculty, Jacqueline Zé Minkandé, signed a statement to this effect on December 10, 2015.

“It is forbidden to organize collective prayers of any persuasion whatsoever and to wear the veil to the FMBS,” she wrote to the student community.

Aside that, the students have also been prohibited from having collective prayer sessions irrespective of the religion.

According to the Mutations newspaper that relayed this information on Monday, December 21, 2015, the note from the Dean is already fueling a controversy on campus, especially among Muslim students.

One of them told the newspaper that “in respect to collective prayers, it is understandable that the dean referred to sects. But we do not understand why she banned the wearing of the veil.”

Students reported that the administration has promised to exclude offenders from the school. Some of them, of Muslim obedience, sent a letter to the dean imploring her to bring a statement, informed Mutations.

For now, the administration has not responded since the school reopened which had yet taken security measures since the formal opening on December 18th, 2015.

Students and guests are subject to search agents of the “campus police” who are particularly picky.

The Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Yaounde I is the first training school under the Higher Education to ban the veil in a university campus in Yaounde.

Mutations recalled that the governor of the Far North has done in his riding skill. Ditto for the S.D.Os of Noun and Mifi. The veil is an integral part of the culture of the Muslims of Cameroon.