DUSHANBE, July 12, Asia-Plus — For the purpose of fostering ethics in schoolchildren and university students the Ministry of Education (MoE) has projected regulations requiring standard type of cloth for them, Education Minister Abdujabbor Rahmonov remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe on July 12. 

According to him, this will promote maintenance of discipline at educational facilities.  “We plan to introduce the new regulations beginning on September 1,” said the minister, “Heads of educational facilities have received concrete instructions on controlling a progress of implementation of this document.”  

Rahmonov noted that female students may come to universities in national cloth, while hejab, which some Muslim conservative girls wear, propagates theocratic states.  He added that the new regulations will be published in a form of brochure in the near future and those interested will be able to familiarize themselves with the main requirements of the Ministry of Education.  .  

As it had been reported earlier, a court case pitting Ms. Davlatmo Ismoilova, the third-year student taking correspondence course at Tajik Institute of Languages, against the Ministry of Education (MoE) is going on at a court in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district.  It began on July 6. 

Davlatmo Ismoilova filed suit against a MoE over its ban on headscarves, including the hejab worn by conservative Muslim girls.

We will recall that just several days after President Emomali Rahmon in March this year ordered a ban on student’s use of cell phones and private cars, the MoE ordered bans on both headscarves and miniskirts for university students.

Davlatmo Ismoilova appealed in the court on May 25 asking to find the Education Ministry’s order of March 31, 2007, providing for appropriate cloth for students, as well actions of the Institute’s administration, which prohibits her from attending lessons because she wears hejab, illegal.

   Davlatmo told journalists that in April, she was not allowed to examinations, because the Institute’s administration has not allowed her to come to the institute in hejab justifying it by the mentioned order of the MoE.   

“This order of the MoE is absolutely unfounded because the RT Law “Education” does not provide for wearing any appropriate cloth for students,” Ismoilova’s defense lawyer Shuhrat Qudratov said in an interview with journalists.  “Before issuing such order it was necessary to make amendments to the education legislation,” the lawyer said.   

Khurshed Ziyoyev, Pro-rector of the Institute of Languages for Studies, noted that in accordance with the country’s Labor Code, the Institute’s trade unions projected a document requiring appropriate cloth for the Institute students and banning both hejab and miniskirts for them.