BAKU (Realist English). The hijab ban in Azerbaijani schools is not a “defense of the secular state” but a direct violation of the country’s Constitution. The Baku authorities refer to the principle of a secular state but forget that the same Basic Law guarantees equality of rights regardless of religion and freedom of conscience.
What the Azerbaijani Constitution says
Article 25 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan directly prohibits the restriction of human rights and freedoms on religious grounds. The state guarantees to everyone equality of rights and freedoms regardless of race, ethnic origin, religion, language, sex, origin, property and official status, and beliefs. It also states: it is prohibited to restrict rights on religious grounds.
Article 48 guarantees freedom of conscience. Everyone has the right to freely determine their attitude toward religion, to profess any religion individually or together with others, to express and disseminate their beliefs related to their attitude toward religion. No one may be compelled to express religious beliefs or to renounce them.
Article 42 enshrines the right to education. The state guarantees the right to free compulsory general secondary education. Denial of access to education on religious grounds is a violation of a constitutional guarantee.
Authorities violate their own laws
The official Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 309 does not contain the word “hijab.” But in practice, girls in headscarves are not allowed into schools. Female teachers are ordered to remove the headscarf or resign. This is not “implementation of the law” — it is the arbitrariness of officials, covered by vague wording.
Human rights defender Arzu Abdulla confirms: “Although the official statement does not mention the hijab, it is precisely what is meant by clothing that does not correspond to the secular character of education.”
Protests and repression
Students of School No. 69 in Balakhany came out with a poster reading “Hijab is not an obstacle to education!”
Journalist Polad Aslanov announced a hunger strike in Colony No. 15 in protest.
In Istanbul, protests took place outside the Azerbaijani consulate with slogans “The hijab ban is a disgrace to brotherhood.”
What Aliyev says
President Ilham Aliyev stated on October 2: “Let no one poke their nose into our way of life and tell us what to do.” He called the measures a response to “physical and ideological risks.”
But the Azerbaijani Constitution is not a “stranger’s nose.” It is the country’s Basic Law, which Aliyev is obliged to observe. Both Article 25, and Article 48, and Article 42 — all of them are violated.
