The ban on women under 60 years of age travelling abroad alone has been suspended. Major-General Abdul Razzaq Al-Nazhuri, who originally made the decision, froze the declaration today following a wave of condemnation from Libyan political figures, civil society organisations and women’s groups.
Nazhuri, the Libyan National Army’s chief of staff and military commander from Ban Jawad to Derna, had justified the ban first in order to stop what he said were “the negatives aspects of Libyan women traveling in foreign countries”, then claiming that Libyan women were in contact with foreign intelligence organisations.
The latter claim has been massively ridiculed.
The ban is seen as having been influenced by the radical Saudi Salafist cleric Osama Al-Otaibi, invited by the LNA to preach in a nuber of eastern mosques.
