Azerbaijan turns hijab-wearing girls away from Baku schools

Discontent is growing in Azerbaijan over a new government decree on school uniforms: girls and women teachers wearing hijabs are being turned away from schools or asked to take off their headscarves. According to an Azerbaijani news website, 37 people were detained in Baku at protests against the rules. It says a group of demonstrators clashed with school staff and “disturbed public order”.

Videos are circulating on social media showing schoolgirls with covered heads unable to enter school buildings. Teachers from Baku and Sumgait say school managers told them to remove their hijabs or hand in their resignations. “I was just called into school and I am no longer allowed into the classroom with a hijab. To be honest, it hurt me,” teacher Zahra Hasanova says, her voice shaking, in a video released by the Al Jazeera channel. In another video, nine-year-old pupil Khadija Karbalai declares: “I am proud of my hijab and I will never take it off. As the daughter of a martyr, I protest against the hijab ban.”

The trigger was a government decree issued in September. It does not mention the hijab explicitly, but it contains the sentence: it is not permitted to violate the uniformity of the established school uniform or to use other items of clothing that do not comply with the principle of the secular nature of general education. The document makes schools and parents responsible for enforcing the rules, but does not say whether a pupil may be barred from lessons or what sanctions should apply. As a result, enforcement differs from place to place.

For example, at School No. 6 in Sumgait, girls in headscarves were not allowed into the building on 28 September, but the school lifted the restriction the next day after parents protested. According to an Azerbaijani TV channel, there was no official statement about the change.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz