Hundreds of people took the streets of Mekele, capital of Tigray region in of northern Ethiopia on Tuesday, demanding schools in Axum town in the same region to comply with court rulings and directives from the Tigray Regional Education Bureau, which guaranteed Muslim female students to wear niqabs in classrooms.
The protesters said Muslim female students have all the rights to learn while wearing niqabs. “Our daughters can learn while wearing niqabs,” the protesters demanded.
The controversy over wearing niqab in the town of Axum in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has heightened as Muslim Grade 12 students missed the deadline to register for the national examination.
School administrations in the town required the female students to remove their niqabs while entering into the school compounds.
Students have been taking to social media to complain that their schools had refused to allow them to complete their registration unless they removed the niqab, which they say violates their religious beliefs.
They said the niqab ban infringes constitutional rights of female Muslim students to education and religious freedom.
APA learned that Christian students also participated in the protest, condemning the ban as “illegal and unconstitutional.”
MG/abj/APA