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

On Monday, Azerbaijan's education ministry began enforcing new uniform rules at state schools, turning away female pupils wearing hijabs. Teenage girls, captured on video, challenged staff members at school entrances, questioning why they had to give up their religion. Protests erupted outside state schools in Baku, the capital, and several southern districts, including Masally and Jalilabad.

These protests are rare in Azerbaijan, a secular country with a population of 10.5 million. The government, led by President Ilham Aliyev since 2003, strictly enforces its constitutional secularism.

The interior ministry reported detaining 37 individuals on Monday who obstructed the rules and violated public order. The rules, approved on September 21, ban clothing contradicting the principle of secularism in education, though they do not specifically mention the hijab. Similar guidelines were extended to teachers on October 6.

One mother, Shahiza Huseynova, protested outside her child's school in the Mashtaga district of Baku and was detained. Her husband, Agha, warned her to either remove the hijab or face imprisonment.

Activist Ilkin Huseynov launched an online platform called "Let Leyli Go to School" to offer free lessons from volunteer teachers to pupils barred from attending school. His whereabouts are unknown, with friends believing he has been detained after leaving Baku on Wednesday. The authorities have not commented, but his phone has been switched off since then.

Since the protests began, users have reported difficulties accessing Instagram and TikTok without a virtual private network (VPN). Most protests occurred in religiously conservative neighborhoods in Baku's outlying settlements and in southern districts near Azerbaijan's 765km (475-mile) border with Iran. The government has been wary of religious influence from Iran, where more ethnic Azerbaijanis reside than in Azerbaijan itself.