Posted on 08/09/2002 10:02:22 PM PDT by thegreatbeast
MOSCOW
A court in the central Russian region of Tatarstan, on Friday, turned down a complaint by three Muslim women who wanted to be allowed to wear headscarves in their passport photographs, media reported.
The women had accused the local government of treading on their constitutional rights by barring them from covering their heads in keeping with the Koran when being photographed for identity documents.
The plaintiffs in the unprecedented case in Tatarstan's capital Kazan said they would appeal the verdict in the Tatar Supreme Court.
The three women had told the court that a Muslim woman can be seen without a headscarf only by her husband or blood relatives; otherwise she sins against God.
But a Tatar interior ministry expert Ramil Shaidullin testified that a photograph is identifiable only if a person's face, forehead, cheeks and the lower part of the chin are visible.
"We understand perfectly well that we cannot tread on religious freedoms. But orders are orders," Galina Fakhrudtinova, in charge of the local passport agency, was quoted as saying by Izvestia earlier this month.
The supreme mufti, or Muslim religious leader, for the central Asian part of Russia, Nafigula Oshirov, said the court ruling was entirely expected.
He told Moscow Echo radio that it was typical of "the general attitude in Russia, where they try to turn Muslims into outsiders."
Some 51 percent of Tatarstan's 3.8 million population are Muslim ethnic Tatars.
The republic had sued for complete autonomy following the Soviet Union's collapse, issuing its own passports and visas.
The oil-rich region still enjoys a wide degree of autonomy within the Russian Federation under an agreement brokered with former president Boris Yeltsin.
Russians must carry passports with them at all times for identification purposes.
A mirror dispute exists in the secular Muslim Caucasus state of Azerbaijan, where Muslim activists are suing the authorities over their refusal to issue passports and identity cards to women who are photographed for the documents with their head covered.
Something is wrong here.
WTF???? Who made that idiotic decision? And which states are these?
BTW nopardons. I'm happily posting away......
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