{Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has scrapped a decree which ordered female government employees to cover their hair at work.}<\/p>\n
The ban, imposed on 4 January, was resisted by opposition groups.
\nIt was lifted because it made women “unhappy”, his office said in a statement, adding that they were his “best friends”.<\/p>\n
Last month, the president declared the Muslim-majority country an Islamic republic.
\nHe said the move was in line with the nation’s “religious identity and values”.<\/p>\n
A memo published in the pro-opposition Freedom and JollofNews newspapers, dated 4 January, said that an “executive directive has been issued that all female staff within the government ministries, departments and agencies are no longer allowed to expose their hair during official working hours”.<\/p>\n
But on Thursday, Mr Jammeh’s office said that the government’s initial ban had had “nothing to do with religion” and that women should not be upset by it.<\/p>\n
“Women are (Mr Jammeh’s) best friends, they are his sisters and he is here for their wellbeing and happiness at all times,” a statement said.<\/p>\n
“That being the case, this decision that makes them unhappy has been lifted.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has scrapped a decree which ordered female government employees to cover their hair at work.} The ban, imposed on 4 January, was resisted by opposition groups. It was lifted because it made women “unhappy”, his office said in a statement, adding that they were his “best friends”. Last month, the president […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071509,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22535.gif","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/gif","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22535.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22535.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22535.gif","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22535.gif","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22535.gif","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22535"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22535"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}