Germany court leaves headscarf matter to states

By: Nabil Raza

KARLSRUHE, Germany: German highest court on Wednesday left it up to the country's 16 states to draft laws on whether a Muslim teacher Fereshta Ludin who wears a headscarf in class is violating the constitution, while leaders of the nation's roughly 3.5 million Muslims criticized the decision as frustrating and lacking clarity.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, southwestern Germany handed a personal victory to Afghanistan-born plaintiff Fereshta Ludin, overturning a 2002 lower court verdict that denied her the right to wear a headscarf in a Baden-Wuerttemberg state school. The court ruled that the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg cannot forbid Ludin from wearing a headscarf in classroom under current law.

But the high court, in a split decision, also said there were arguments for a ban on headscarves in public schools. Officials in four states — Hesse, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria and Berlin — immediately announced they would seek laws enforcing such a ban.

“The headscarf, after all, is not just tradition and a mere symbol. Rather, it is a demonstration of an expression of faith. This has no place in Hesse's schools," said Karin Wolff, the Hesse minister responsible for schools.

Margot Kaessmann, the Lutheran bishop of Hanover, suggested the headscarf was a symbol of women's oppression that did not belong in schools. Muslim women should be free to wear the scarf in public, but not at an institution “that represents our state and defends a constitution that views men and women as having equal rights.”

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Hundreds of protestors decry headscarf ban in Belgium

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Hundreds of demonstrators on Sunday took to the streets of Brussels protesting against a recent decision by a school regarding banning of its girl students from wearing the Islamic headscarf.

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