Debate has intensified in Azerbaijan over the implementation of new school uniform rules after videos circulated showing hijab-wearing students and teachers being barred from state schools in the capital, Baku, and other cities. Although the amendments do not explicitly ban the hijab, the way they have been implemented has led opponents to view them as a restriction on the education of hijab-wearing girls and women and their employment in educational institutions.
School uniform amendments and the uniform policy
The Azerbaijani Cabinet approved amendments to the school uniform rules on 21 September, as part of an approach that authorities say is intended to strengthen the secular character of public education. The rules ban clothing or accessories that conflict with the standard school uniform, or that authorities deem contrary to the principle of a secular educational environment.
The amendments were approved after President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree in July on the introduction of a uniform in state educational institutions. The start of implementation prompted debate over the limits of compliance with the official uniform, whether this included banning the hijab, and how this related to freedom of belief in Azerbaijan, where Muslims make up the majority of the population.
Protest videos and hijab-wearing women barred from entry
The debate quickly moved from schools to social media platforms, as recordings circulated of hijab-wearing students being denied entry, while others showed students and teachers crying or leaving schools. The spread of the videos was accompanied by growing demands to allow hijab-wearing women to continue studying and working without requiring them to remove their hijabs.
The objections also spread inside educational institutions, with the Azerbaijani Meydan TV platform documenting a protest by students at Baku School No. 69. The students refused to attend lessons in solidarity with their hijab-wearing classmates, demanding that they be allowed to return to school and enter their classrooms.
Azerbaijani journalist Tural Sadigli also published videos and posts addressing the spread of protests against the new restrictions. Activists, journalists and public figures joined the debate, with their positions divided between supporters who view the rules as an application of the principle of secular education, and opponents who believe that applying them to hijab-wearing women restricts freedom of belief and leads to their exclusion from schools.
Amid the debate, Azerbaijani artist Roza Ibadova Kojamaz recalled her experience with the issue of girls’ education in the country, pointing to the difficulties some families had previously faced in sending their daughters to school, particularly in villages around Baku.
She said conditions changed after a meeting between the late Azerbaijani leader Heydar Aliyev and the capital’s elders, after which families began sending their daughters to school, whether they wore the hijab or not. Kojamaz expressed hope that President Ilham Aliyev’s decision would help end the debate and allow hijab-wearing girls to continue their education, affirming her confidence in the state.
Positions divided between secularism and freedom of belief
By contrast, Azerbaijani researcher and political analyst Ulfia Zulfiqar defended secular education, saying that freedom of religious belief and compliance with schools’ internal regulations were not incompatible, and that the uniform rules were intended to preserve a secular educational environment.
Azerbaijani journalist and media activist Nigar Ogiday Abdullahzadeh took an opposing position on the restrictions, warning of their impact on relations between society and the authorities. She accused parties within state institutions of influencing education decisions and stoking hostility towards Islam, and called on President Ilham Aliyev to intervene to stop what she described as an attack on the country’s religious and moral values.
Protests spread to the Azerbaijani consulate in Istanbul
The repercussions of the issue crossed Azerbaijan’s borders and reached Turkey, where protesters held a demonstration outside the Azerbaijani consulate in Istanbul and called for the restrictions imposed on hijab-wearing women to be reversed.
The debate continues between supporters of the rules, who regard them as part of secular education, and opponents who believe their implementation infringes on the freedom to wear the hijab. The disagreement has expanded from the issue of school uniforms to the limits of applying secularism and freedom of belief in educational institutions.
