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• Hijabskirt Info • The X-Cultural Reporting Awards • Third Forum of the Alliance of Civilisations • Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age

       International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) and United Nation Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) awarded two Egyptian and one Serbian journalists, Tarek Mounir, Asma Fathy and Sasa Milosevic for joint project „Hijabskirt Info“ as an unique multimedia Web site analysing the difference in cultural perceptions, starting with the Muslim hijab and the Western miniskirt.  The X-Cultural Reporting Awards will be presented at a ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 29, 2010 at Third Forum of the Alliance of Civilisations.
       The awarded team formed at a conference on Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age held in Alexandria, Egypt, in February, sponsored by the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the Anna Lindh Foundation and administered by ICFJ, presented educational and social platform for reconciliation West and East through the symbolic process of reconciliation hijab and skirts.
       “Our goal is to encourage people around the world to begin to think by the own heads instead the heads of their governments” Sasa Milosevic said “Women in hijab as well as the women in skirt are stretched on the cross of the shame. After September 11th Western media treat all veiled Muslim women as terrorists, suicide-bombers and Osama bin Laden's followers. On the other side, Muslim traditionalists look every woman in the (mini) skirts like “easy woman”, a whore, a hunter of the wealthy Arab husbands or “walking wallet” who, for a little money, rents young, sexually-potent and poor Arab men”
       Egyptian journalist Asma Faty, one of the project creator proudly wears its hijab.
       Hijabskirt Project emphasizes the internal values of a woman pointing out that dressing is only external reflection of woman’s ethnic, traditional, religious or fashionable affiliation.
       Some of the most popular and internationally recognized women wear short skirt or hijab as the own sign of recognition but no one criticize them due to it. Their power, influence, charity and humanitarian activities have overshadowed their dressing.
       There is a long list: Princess Diana, Cecile Sarkozy, Condoleezza Rice, Hilary Clinton,  Cristina Elizabet Fernández de Kirchner,  Queen Rania, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned,  Her Royal Highness Princess Masna, Benazir Bhutto…
       Hijabskirt Info is a treasure of encyclopaedia facts such as history of mini skirt and its golden age in the Middle East or theological interpretation of the hijab and its practical role in the life of Muslim women . It offers very useful practical tips: how to wear the hijab, how to make a mini-skirt from old jeans or how to make a hijab-style skirt as a compromise between both modern Western and traditional Eastern ways of dressing.

       PHOTO: The second-place team, in front of the Alexandria Library