RUSSIAN SUPREME COURT CONFIRMS DECISION OF MORDOVAN COURT ON BAN OF WEARING HIJABS IN SCHOOLS
Interfax-Religiia, 11 February 2015
The Supreme Court of the RF found to be legal requirements regarding the appearance of schoolchildren, which were approved by a resolution of the government of the republic of Mordovia and which forbid, specifically, wearing in educational institutions of the region religious clothing and head covers, including hijabs.
As an Interfax correspondent reports, thereby the appeal of the declarers was rejected and the decision of the Supreme Court of Mordovia took legal effect.
The complainants—representatives of the Muslim community of Mordovia—asked that the decision of the republican court be ruled illegal, since it violates the right to freedom of religious confession.
Also, according to the materials of the complaint, the contested legal act adopted by the government of Mordovia contradicts the law "On education," which speaks about the general accessibility of education.
One of the lawyers representing the complainants reported that "in Saransk schools scarves are being torn off of little girls, they are herded by rulers, and parents and even children are being held to disciplinary accountability."
At the same time she noted that in Tatarstan scarves are permitted, in Chechnya scarves are required, and only in Mordovia are they prohibited, while we "are talking not about hijabs but about flimsy scarves."
In its turn the respondent—a representative of the government of Mordovia—requested that the appeal be rejected.
Last autumn a Mordovian court found to be legal requirements for the appearance of schoolchildren, prohibiting in particular the wearing in educational institutions of the republic religious clothing and head coverings.
Earlier the head of the Central Ecclesiastical Board of Muslims of Mordovia, Mufti Fagim Shafiev, asked the prosecutor's office to give a legal assessment of the resolution of the government of the republic about school uniforms that prohibits wearing religious clothing in educational institutions. The mufti said that after the adoption of this document, "a multitude of appeals from upset parents arrived."
Concern regarding the situation in Mordovia also was expressed by the head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, Ravil Gainutdin, who sent to President Vladimir Putin a request to protect the right of Muslim girls to wear hijabs in educational organizations.
The head of the synod's Department for Relations of Church and Society, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, commenting on the topic of hijabs, told Interfax-Religiia that believers have the right to wear religious clothing in public places, including in schools. He emphasized that secular and religious worldviews, according to the constitution, are equal, "and that means that the external manifestations of these worldviews, including in the public space, also should be equal."
On his part, Minister of Education Dmitry Livanov told journalists that "today at the federal level a rule is in effect prescribing how children should be dressed in school," and one of these rules says that school clothing "should be secular." (tr. by PDS, posted 12 February 2015)
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