School headscarf ban sparks rare protests in Azerbaijan and row with Turkey

Protests have taken place over the rules which have seen pupils wearing hijabs turned away from schools. These schoolgirls were not allowed to enter classes because of their headscarves "You are telling me, I can't come to school?" says a teenage girl in a navy blue Islamic headscarf, captured on video challenging a staff member at the entrance to her school. The footage has been shared widely on social media, and shows a group of girls in hijabs standing behind her applauding as she continues: "Why should I have to give up my religion?" Last Monday the education ministry in Azerbaijan began enforcing new uniform rules, turning away female pupils wearing hijabs.

Protests began outside state schools in the capital, Baku, and in several southern districts including Masally and Jalilabad. Protests are rare in this oil- and gas-producing country of 10.5 million people. Azerbaijan is constitutionally secular and the government strongly enforces that. President Ilham Aliyev has been in power since 2003 and has little tolerance for dissent. Opposition politicians and many independent journalists are in jail. Azerbaijan is pulled between two neighbours, Turkey and Iran. Azerbaijanis belong to a Turkic group of nations, speaking a language close to Turkish, and Turkey is its closest ally. But like Iran to the south, Azerbaijan is mainly Shia – over 60% of