Ahlul Bayt News Agency - A decision by a Kyrgyz region to ban hijab in schools has sparked concerns among Muslims, amid reports that the ban may be applied across the country by next autumn.
“This question was raised a year ago, and the authorities ruled that hijabs should be allowed. Now the schools started discussing this topic again," Aibek Ashirbayev, whose daughter attends a public school in Otuz Adir village in Kara-Suu region, told on Monday, April27.
"It worries me and many others. We live in a country where 80% of the citizens are Muslims, so why not let Muslim girls wear hijabs?”
Ashirbayev was voicing Muslims' worries after a Kara-Suu school has officially banned wearing the Islamic headscarf in classes.
Imposing the ban, Aizhamal Kalenova, Head of the Education Department in Kara-Suu region, said: “As of the new academic year 2015/2016 all schoolchildren across Kyrgyzstan will be wearing the same uniform, and we should be preparing the children for this process already.”
Kalenova claims that the ban came in response to complaints by dozens of parents against donning hijab in schools.
“Because the influence of the religious population in our region is quite high, until now this problem hasn’t been raised, but we were asked to not allow girls attend school in hijabs anymore,” Kulanova says.
Muslims make up 75 percent of Kyrgyzstan's 5-million population.
The right to religious freedom has recently come under attack in Kyrgyzstan, according to domestic and international rights activists.
In 2009, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed a law banning proselytism, private religious education and the import or dissemination of religious literature. The law also requires all religious communities to register with the state.
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