Restrictions on attending school while wearing a hijab could deepen the isolation of children from religious families, Tural Abbasli, chairman of Azerbaijan’s Ag Party, said.
Abbasli said the state’s priority should be ensuring that every child receives an education, while disputes over religious clothing should be addressed through public dialogue. He made the comments during an appearance on Prime TV Azerbaijan as he discussed the debate over hijabs in schools and possible penalties for parents.
He drew a distinction between families that send their daughters to school with their heads covered and parents who refuse school education altogether for religious reasons. In his view, barring the first group from class could push them closer to the second and give advocates of isolation another argument against secular schools.
“Let these children come to school and study,” Abbasli said.
Keeping Children Connected to School
Abbasli said the greater risk was that children could be removed from the general education system and taught instead in closed religious groups. He said he would support action against practices that deny children an education but argued that refusing school entirely should not be treated as equivalent to attending classes in a hijab.
He also warned that strict restrictions could strengthen groups that portray the state as hostile to religion, allowing them to use the dispute to deepen distrust of public institutions.
Choice, Family Pressure and Dialogue
Abbasli acknowledged that family and social pressure can influence religious dress. He cited cases in which girls remove their headscarves after leaving their home communities and put them back on before returning.
He said adults should ultimately decide for themselves whether to wear religious clothing. His comments about parental authority before adulthood were a political position, not a legal interpretation.
Abbasli called for the dispute to be discussed calmly and warned that failure to find an acceptable solution through dialogue could move the conflict from the negotiating table to street protests. Parents, he said, should be able to express concerns about their children’s education and expect those concerns to be heard.
Sources: Vesti Baku; Prime TV Azerbaijan interview.