God forbid
Muslims in central Russia’s Vladimir region have come out against a school hijab ban
The Vladimir region in central Russia has banned those attending its schools and universities from wearing religious clothing, including traditional Muslim garments for women such as the hijab or niqab. While the regional authorities have argued that the ban is necessary to protect the secular nature of education, Muslims from all over Russia are unsurprisingly opposed to the new restrictions.
A secular argument
Legislation banning students from wearing religious garments such as hijabs and niqabs in schools and further education facilities across the Vladimir region came into force on Friday with the region’s Education Ministry arguing that the law is fully aligned with Russia’s secularism, as defined in the country‘s constitution.
The ministry also said that the requirements detailing students’ appearance, regardless of their faith, helped to preserve education’s secular nature and ensured “religious neutrality”.
On Tuesday, after mounting criticism, the region’s deputy governor, Vladimir Kuimov, defended the decree to reporters, telling them that it had been issued following requests made by parents to the regional authorities to help prevent tension between classmates.
Several schools in the Vladimir region have confirmed to Novaya Gazeta Europe that they would no longer allow a pupil wearing either a hijab or a niqab to attend classes. One school director said: “The hijab is not allowed, and neither is a bandana. The rules are the same for everyone. … The regulations that have been introduced are followed by all students. There are no special allowances.”
Any student found violating the regulations at School №23 in the regional capital Vladimir could face disciplinary action, according to independent news outlet Vot Tak, which also reported being told by a school representative that while students were free to express their religious identity at home and in their own free time, no religious symbols could be worn on the school premises.
Mukhetdinov said that he thought the legislation was both hypocritical and would disproportionately affect minority religions such as Islam.
Bulach Chankalaev, a well-known figure in the majority Muslim North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, also expressed his concern about the Vladimir region ban in a video message addressed to Vladimir Putin, in which he called for the restrictions to be lifted, and stressed that such a rule “should not exist anywhere”.
The Vladimir region ban has inevitably become a hot topic with local residents as well. Under a post on Russian social media giant VK announcing the new restrictions, one resident responded by saying that the decree went against Russia’s tradition of being “friends with the Islamic world” and that the Vladimir region had decided to align itself with “the extremely leftist values of godless France,” alluding to France’s own controversial ban on the wearing of religious symbols in schools. Another commenter pointed out that discrimination was the inevitable result of “forbidding Muslims to observe their religious rituals, while allowing Christians to observe theirs”.
Some residents have also become increasingly concerned that restrictions may broaden and Christian crosses may soon be banned from school walls.
Meanwhile, many commented under the post in support of the Education Ministry with some calling for the ban to be extended to the rest of Russia “as soon as possible” in order to protect “Russian people, Russian national identity and culture”.
Others thanked the authorities “for defending Russians” and called for those who felt the need to display their religion through clothing to attend “madrasas or Orthodox schools”.
The latest of many
Vladimir is not the first region in Russia to ban the wearing of hijabs in schools, however. Leading the charge was the Stavropol region in the North Caucasus in 2013, followed closely by the republic of Mordovia in western Russia one year later. In 2015, both the Volga region republic of Chuvashia and the majority Muslim republic of Kabardino-Balkaria both introduced similar bans, and were joined by the predominantly Muslim republic of Tatarstan in 2017.
In May, the vice speaker of Russia’s State Duma, Vladislav Davankov, introduced a federal bill banning any clothing with religious symbolism from being worn in schools across Russia that would have granted regional Education Ministries the authority to restrict the wearing of niqabs.
