After Protests Brought Arrests, Azerbaijanis who Support Right to Wear the Hijab have Shifted How They are Resisting with Some Teaching Their Daughters at Home, Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 30 – In early October, the Azerbaijani authorities insisted that pupils and teachers in state schools could no longer wear the hijab because in their view that represents a threat to the secular nature of the Azerbaijani system. Such protests have stopped but resistance is continuing, with some families pulling their daughters out of school, Kavkaz-Uzel reports.

            That resistance underscores just how committed many Azerbaijani parents are to having their daughters wear the hijab and how much anger the decision of the authorities have stirred up (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/427925; for background on these protests, see jamestown.org/bakus-hijab-ban-sparks-protests-in-azerbaijan-and-creates-problems-with-turkiye/).

            While parents can pull their children out of school as long as they provide alternative instruction in private schools or at home, teachers who wanted to wear the hijab have no such fall back position: they must either give in to the official rules or face dismissal from their jobs, something that appears to be happening in an increasing number of cases.

            What makes this worrisome is that many of these parents may be far more inclined to listen to and even follow underground religious leaders who defend what the parents want but who have even larger agendas regarding secular Azerbaijan. To the extent that happens, what may seem to some like a tempest in a teapot may become something far larger in the future.