Azerbaijan: clashes between believers and police result in victims and detainees

Today in the morning, several hundreds of believers held a protest action in front of the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan against the ban to wear hijabs in schools, introduced in November last year. Policemen tried to disperse the protesters; in the course of the confrontation, one of the women lost consciousness, and dozens of people were beaten and detained.

The action started at around 11:00 a.m. (10:00 a.m. Moscow time), when the believers, who gathered in front of the Ministry, began chanting "Allah Akbar!" They also demanded dismissal of Misir Mardanov, of the Minister of Education.

The protesters expressed their outrage, because of the ban on hijabs their daughters cannot go to school. Police units, which hastily arrived to the building of the Ministry of Education, began dispersing the crowd with their truncheons. The physical pressure was put on women and journalists, from whom policemen tried to take away their photo and video cameras, preventing to make the footage.

One of the women fainted, and dozens of people were beaten and detained. Nevertheless, the protesters rendered resistance to the police and refused to disperse; they began throwing stones at the policemen. The confrontation moved into the neighbouring streets. The confused policemen did not dare to continue pursuing the believers, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

However, none of the religious communities and Islamic political structures has taken responsibility for today's protest. The event was not advertised in advance through the media and looked like believers' spontaneous protest.

So far, the Baku police and the MIA give no comment on the incident and report nothing about the detainees. Earlier, on December 10, an action of this sort was already held in front of the Ministry of Education, but it had no such tough confrontation.