Russian parents appeal hijab ban in upper court

Parents whose children are not allowed to wear Muslim headscarves to school in a southern Russian region have appealed to the Supreme Court, defense lawyer Murad Musayev told RIA Novosti on Monday.

The ban on hijabs for pupils in the Stavropol Region came into force last September after local authorities issued a ruling requiring schoolchildren to wear uniforms. The uniform guidelines ban pupils from wearing brightly colored clothes, veils, pants and skirts with a low waistline or high slits, and accessories depicting informal youth group symbols, as well as religious clothing.

The appeal was filed on behalf of Muslim families in the Stavropol Region who are seeking to annul the school uniform requirements. A lower court rejected the lawsuit in March.

A similar legal case was launched in Siberia last month. A local television station in the city of Krasnoyarsk reported that a female student from the Muslim-populated region of Dagestan had been expelled from the city’s medical school for wearing a headscarf on its premises. Local prosecutors criticized the dismissal as violating education law and ordered the university to reinstate the student.

RIA Novosti, 22 April 2013