Rare protests erupt in Azerbaijan over school hijab ban

Azerbaijan has seen rare protests outside schools after the education ministry began enforcing new uniform rules that bar pupils wearing hijabs from state schools. Demonstrations were reported in the capital, Baku, and in southern districts including Masally and Jalilabad. The dispute has also drawn in Turkey, adding a regional dimension to a domestic issue over secular education rules.

The rules were approved on 21 September and began being enforced last Monday, according to the supplied material. They ban clothing that contradicts what officials describe as the principle of secularism in education, although the text does not specifically name the hijab. Similar guidance was extended to teachers on 6 October, widening the scope of the policy beyond pupils.

The interior ministry said 37 people were detained on Monday for trying to obstruct the rules and for what it described as grossly violating public order. One video shared widely on social media shows girls in hijabs outside a school in Balakhany, on the edge of Baku, holding a banner saying the hijab does not prevent anyone from getting an education. Another video shows a teenage girl challenging a staff member at a school entrance and asking why she should have to give up her religion.

The protests are significant because public demonstrations are uncommon in Azerbaijan, a country of about 10.5 million people that is constitutionally secular and tightly controlled by the state. President Ilham Aliyev has been in power since 2003, and the supplied material says opposition politicians and many independent journalists are in jail. That political backdrop helps explain why a school uniform dispute has quickly become a sensitive test of public dissent and state authority.

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The issue also sits at the intersection of religion, identity and foreign ties. Azerbaijan is mainly Shia Muslim, while Turkey, its closest ally, is predominantly Sunni, and the country is also described as being pulled between Turkey and Iran. The row therefore has implications beyond school dress codes, touching on how the government balances secular policy with religious expression in a society where such disputes are rarely visible in public.

What remains unclear is how widely the enforcement will continue and whether the protests will spread beyond the districts already reported. The supplied material does not say how many pupils have been turned away overall, or whether any policy changes are being considered. The next developments to watch are further detentions, any response from the education ministry, and whether the dispute deepens into a broader political or diplomatic issue.

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