Post date: Dec 03, 2012 1:43:29 PM
Muslims from the Stavropol region in Southern Russia protest a local school's ban on hijabs. Students have not been allowed to enter classes wearing the traditional Muslim headscarf which, according to the school's director, is not in line with the dress code.
ZELENOKUMSK, STAVROPOL REGION, RUSSIA) (RU24) - Controversy is brewing in the southern Russia Stravropol Region, where girls have been banned from wearing the Muslim hijab head dress to school.
According to Russian broadcaster Russia 24, several of the girls at the Zelenokumsk City School No. 12 have missed dozens of classes because of the ban in the Russian region with a sizeable Muslim population.State channels showed the school's administrator Tatiana Lepekhina leading away a young girl in a lace hijab.
"The girl here wears a head covering that doesn't meet requirements," Lepekhina said. "We're taking her back home."
Lepekhina explained that the rules were written in the school's dress code.
"It's written here what's possible, what's not, not allowed," she said, showing a reporter the code on her desk. "You can't wear outer wear and head coverings in school."
As girls waited for a school bus, a parent said the rules were unfair and came at a time when barring his daughter's hijab could keep her out of school altogether.
"I may be able to set up my child in a special school, but I simply can't find a place for my child," the parent said.
In Pyatigorsk, religious leaders and a representative of the Committee for Nationalities and Cossacks, a local government committee addressing affairs of ethnic and religious minority groups, met recently to discuss the issue, which ended in a heated debate.
"We can't prevent those who want to wear head coverings, the school cannot ban them, because school is their home of knowledge," said the mufti for the Stavropol Region Mohammad Rakhimov.
But Sergei Zenin, an employee for the Committee for Nationalities and Cossacks, said the head coverings did not have a place in secular schools.
"Hijabs are an element of religious education, and school is secular. That would be a madrassa (religious school). No one is saying no or against it," Zenin said.
Many of the meeting participants told Russia 24 they would appeal to higher authorities to repeal the ban.