Protests have spread across Azerbaijan after schools and other educational facilities began turning away female students and staff who wear the hijab, placing the tension between personal religious practice and government-mandated secular education at the centre of public discourse — a development that carries particular weight in a country where around 96 percent of the population identifies as Muslim.
The dress-code measures have drawn scrutiny over their apparent tension with the religious makeup of the country, given that some students who wear the hijab have been barred from attending lessons.
On 21 September, Azerbaijan's Cabinet of Ministers revised the regulations governing student attire in schools, introducing a ban on garments that fall outside the prescribed dress code or run counter to the secular foundations underpinning state education. Though the rule contains no explicit reference to head coverings, multiple accounts indicate that those wearing the hijab — both students and teachers — have been turned away at school entrances under its application, a development that has since prompted organised protests and classroom walkouts.
Zahra Hasanova, a teacher who said she had been told her headscarf was no longer permitted on school grounds, expressed that the ruling had left her upset, while also maintaining that the choice of whether to wear one should rest with the individual — adding, in her own words, that she was feeling somewhat emotional about it. Hasanova described feeling wounded by the situation, telling a news outlet that the headscarf represents an individual decision — one she said should remain hers to make, including any choice to stop wearing it.
Local media reported that pupils at a minimum of two schools stayed away from classes in response to the restrictions. Video circulating on social media showed pupils unable to enter school buildings, with a number visibly upset and others clinging to staff at the doors.
Authorities cited commitments to secular schooling, a standardised dress code across campuses, and professional conduct requirements for teaching staff as the basis for the new measures. The dress-code revision dated 21 September was put forward as a measure aimed at bringing school attire into line with the secular foundations of general education, according to the state-operated Azerbaijani Press Agency (APA). On 6 October, a standalone ruling set out dress-code requirements for teaching staff, covering standards of tidiness, professional appearance, and attire suited to a school setting.
Azerbaijan's Constitution anchors the government's position through Article 18, a provision that draws a distinction between religion and state authority while mandating that public education operate on secular principles. Freedom of conscience, religious observance, and access to education each receive constitutional backing — the first two under Article 48, the third through Article 42. Constitutionally, Azerbaijan operates as a secular state, even as roughly 96 percent of its people identify as Muslim.
The measure was presented under an educational framework, with its architects deliberately avoiding any religious characterisation in how they described it.
