US embassy cable - 05DUSHANBE1708

UNCLAS DUSHANBE 001708 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
STATE FOR EUR/CACEN, SA, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KISL, KIRF, TI 
SUBJECT: TAJIK MINISTRY OF EDUCATION BANS HIJABS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 
1.  Deputy Minister of Education Farkhod Rakhimov announced on 
October 19 that hijabs (Muslim head-coverings) are banned in 
schools and institutions of higher education.  Education 
officials were instructed to disseminate this message throughout 
their schools.  Students who violate this edict will face 
disciplinary consequences, even possible expulsion.  Rakhimov, 
who heads the commission that promulgated this edict, reasons, 
"The hijab [represents] a form of religious ideology which 
contradicts the Law on Education and the Consitution." 
 
2.  Rakhimov told Embassy Political Assistant that the 
Government feels obliged to take preventive measures to curb 
students from wearing the hijab throughout Tajikistan in order 
to uphold secular education.  He is convinced that students and 
their families are being coerced into wearing the hijab and 
offered cases in the Sughd region and Dushanbe as proof.  In 
these cases, the students and their parents showed little 
evidence of being devoutly Muslim, but chose to wear a hijab. 
Therefore, the commission concluded, someone else encouraged 
them wear the hijab, perhaps to make a political statement. 
 
3.  Opposition figures and political and religious leaders have 
expressed disappointment and legal concerns about the law. 
Muhiddin Kabiri, First Deputy Chairman of the Islamic Revival 
Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), appealed directly to the Minister of 
Education.  Post believes the majority of the country, up to 
this point, has been indifferent to the hijab's place in 
schools.  Domullo Naim, a leading Islamic Scholar of the region, 
fears the law will incite a greater rift between the government 
and observant Muslims, laying the groundwork for religious 
extremism. 
 
4.  COMMENT:   The government seems to believe it can prevent 
the growth of extremism by regulating external symbols - a 
dubious proposition.  It remains to be clarified whether this 
new edict apples only to full hijab or also includes 
headscarves, which are more a sign of traditional conservatism 
than extremism.  In any case, as unwise as this edict may be, it 
is little different from similar controversial regulations in 
France and Turkey.  END COMMENT. 
 
HOAGLAND 
 
 
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