Islam Online, UK
April 30 2004
Azeri Muslims Call For Hijab Photos
Hijab is banned in photographs used in Azeri official documents
By Damir Ahmad, IOL Correspondent
BAKU, April 30 (IslamOnline.net) – The Islamic Party in Azerbaijan
appealed to President Ilham Aliyev to allow Muslim women to wear
hijab in photographs taken for official documents.
“We presented an urgent appeal to the President to that effect, as
the female party members see the matter as part of preserving their
personal freedom,” Erada Goliefa, the party’s Women Committee
chairman, said Thursday, April 29.
The Russian NTV said security officials have refused to issue
passports and IDs to women photographed with their head covered,
forcing the women and human rights groups to file lawsuits against
the government.
Goliefa said that the wife of the country’s mufti and his daughter
only are allowed to get ID photos with hijab.
“While the rest of Muslim women are not permitted to do so,” she
lamented.
The government has recently approved a personal freedom law, which
allows any Muslim woman to choose the form of their photographs
attached to official documents.
Goliefa hoped the move should go further for hijab to appear in these
photographs, which dissuaded 2000 Muslim women from casting ballots
in the recent 2003 Presidential elections as they have no IDs.
Islam deems hijab a religious obligation which has nothing to do with
portraying any political affiliation.
Goliefa called on the government to leave Muslim women meet this
obligation.
Permanent Suffering
The hijab is a nagging issue for Muslim women in the former Soviet
Union republic.
“It causes several problems for women here while they try to get
permits for hajj and Umrah,” Goliefa complained.
University officials have warned students against wearing the gear in
campus – much to the consternation of Muslim females who considered
dropping out.
Female students at three schools in Baku, the medical institute, the
pedagogical institute and Baku State University, had said that their
lecturers ordered them to remove the hijab.
Chequered Record
Azerbaijan has a remarkably chequered record on religious freedoms.
The government is frequently accused of violating religious freedoms
in its desire to shore up the country’s secular principles.
In 2002, over a hundred Muslim women have applied for political
asylum in German and French Embassies in protest at the law banning
them from wearing hijab in their passport photographs.
The women then said that the move is an affront to their honor and
dignity.
The government had also imposed on the same year compulsory
registration of religious groups, in a move considered as a new bid
to clamp down on minority faiths.
Earlier in January, Azeri security forces detained four Islamic
activists on suspicion of attempting to cross the border into
Chechnya to join independence-seekers fighting Russian forces.
Nearly 93.4 % of the population in Azerbaijan is Muslim, nearly 2.5 %
are Russian Orthodox, 2.3 % Armenian Orthodox and the other sects
have 1.8% adherents.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
