prejudice to stronger sentences which may have been incurred for affronts, assault and battery or threats ». 166. Furthermore, the State guarantees the inviolability of the places of worship of all the denominations. Towards this end, Article 161 of the Penal Code stipulates that « whosoever destroys, knocks down, damages, defaces or tarnishes the buildings, monuments, symbols or objects belonging to or used by the religions shall be punished by imprisonment of one year and fined ». 167. The defense of the freedom of essential objective of the educational with the promotion of the culture of values, of attitudes, behaviour and acceptance of differences. conscience and of religion constitutes an and cultural choices conceived in function difference understood as being a set of modes of life based on the reciprocal 168. Thus, the culture of difference is one of the principal objectives of the Tunisian educational system. It consists in « preparing the youth for a life which has no place for any form of discrimination or segregation based on gender, social origin, race or religion », « to give the pupils the right to the edification of their personalities and to help them gain maturity by themselves, so that they are brought up in the values of tolerance and of moderation ». 169. In this context, the promotion of religious culture in schools takes on a civilized and progressive aspect, in that its aim is to train the pupils to make independent judgments and to enable them « internalize the values of tolerance and respect for others as a condition of the development of the individual ». 170. Human Rights education is inscribed in all the educational programmes and explicitly in the load-bearing disciplines of this education, by virtue of their specificity, such as civic education without forgetting languages and literature. 171. The Ministry of Education and Training is vigilant with regard to all manifestations of discrimination and intolerance. Wrongly presented as being conform to allusive Koranic dictates, the wearing of the Hijab has become, with the rise in fundamentalism, the symbol and rallying expression of this movement. To wear it means that one is « a Muslim Sister » just like the beard is for the « Muslim Brother ». Its presence in the schools is contradictory to the principles of the educational system and the values it defends: openness, tolerance and rejection of all forms of discrimination, without forgetting the political neutrality of the school. Circular 108 of the Ministry of Education and Sciences requires the pupils, out of respect for school rules, to dress decently. Furthermore, the wearing of the Hijab, which remains a minority practice in Tunisia, is advocated by fanatical fundamentalists. It is totally foreign to the dress traditions of Tunisia. 172. Finally, the writings of « Chaire Ben Ali for the Dialogue of Civilizations and Religions » ceaselessly prove that religions and civilizations can and should contribute to the establishment of the ethical, philosophical and political bases of co-existence and cooperation between peoples. 39