Azerbaijan’s hijab protests: disobedience opens cracks in the Kingdom of Fear

Student-led protests have erupted over the hijab ban in Azerbaijan’s schools, representing a display of public opposition to Ilham Aliyev's government. This oil-rich state on the western shore of the Caspian Sea has now joined the wave of youth protests currently unfolding in countries across the world.

On 21 September, Resolution No. 309 of the Cabinet of Ministers restricted the wearing of items of clothing considered to undermine the uniformity of school dress or conflict with the principle of secularism in schools. Although the resolution does not explicitly mention the hijab, school administrators began barring hijab-wearing girls from attending classes. On 6 October, dress requirements for teachers were also approved.

When girls wearing the hijab were barred from attending classes, fellow pupils organised collective boycotts in solidarity. As a result, dozens of people were detained and subjected to administrative penalties. As videos of the protests spread online, the government restricted access to social media through a number of internet providers.

This is an anticipation of stormier struggles to come.

Political power has been concentrated in the hands of the Aliyev family for more than 33 years, since the restoration of capitalism – enforced through a ruthless state. The repressive, Bonapartist features of the regime have only intensified since the conclusion of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, in which Azerbaijan claimed victory, expelling the Armenian population of the old Soviet autonomous region.

The regime is ruthless in crushing any dissent. Critical journalists receive lengthy prison sentences, political activists face persecution (including torture), and the open expression of public discontent can carry grave consequences. This is a country where any hint of open political opposition is usually quickly suffocated. Protests are extremely rare.

But on 9 October 2026, something unexpected happened. Pupils at School No. 69 in Balakhani, a settlement in Baku, began a boycott in protest of their hijab-wearing classmates being denied entry to lessons. Similar boycotts and protests were recorded at other schools.

Videos circulated on social media of pupils gathered outside school buildings and girls being turned away because of their religious dress. They also showed children embracing weeping teachers, who faced the threat of being fired from their schools for wearing the hijab. These images provoked an outpouring of indignation across Azerbaijan, where 96 percent of the population identify as Muslim.

On 12 October, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that 37 people had been detained in connection with these events and that criminal proceedings had been initiated under Article 233 of the Criminal Code. The ministry alleged that those concerned had taken part in actions intended to disturb public order, obstruct the operation of schools and damage property. That same day, access to Instagram, TikTok and X was restricted without explanation, until 14 October.

Further arrests took place on the evening of 12 October, during an attempt to stage a protest near the 28 May metro station in Baku. On 13 October, several media outlets reported that more than 200 people had been detained. Reports published on 14 October stated that a number of participants had received administrative detention sentences of 10, 25 and 30 days.

Reports from Nakhchivan also indicated that two parents had been detained after posting videos protesting against the exclusion of their hijab-wearing children from school.

Despite the social media blackout, it is apparent that the movement had spread well beyond Baku. According to Meydan TV, more than 10 people in the village of Privolnoye, in the Jalilabad district, were reportedly sentenced to 20 days of administrative detention.

Reports also emerged that a 29-year-old resident of the Absheron district, Rafael Huseynzade, was sentenced to 30 days' detention for writing 'Freedom for the hijab!' on a school wall and that his father received the same punishment for protesting.

88 people have allegedly been detained in Nardaran in connection with protests against the hijab restrictions. These raids are apparently being carried out by the Interior Ministry's Main Directorate for Combating Organised Crime. Those detained are being denied access to independent lawyers. Their relatives had been threatened with the torture of their imprisoned family members if they speak to the media.

Volunteer teachers launched the ‘Let Leyli Go to School’ initiative, which seeks to provide children at risk of exclusion from education with free online lessons taught by volunteer teachers. Reports emerged that the initiative's founder, Ilkin Huseynov, went missing on 14 October. On 16 October, he was sentenced to 30 days of administrative detention on a charge of failing to comply with a lawful police order.

The government invokes secularism, discipline and social equality to justify uniform school dress. But its policy towards religion Islam and Islamic dress is highly contradictory.

For example, under a decree signed by Ilham Aliyev on 7 January 2026, 3.5 million Azerbaijani manats in state funds were allocated to the Caucasus Muslims Board. Financial assistance was also allocated to Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish religious organisations.

The government is prepared to reward these ‘official’ bodies with big sums of public money in order to buy support and influence from conservative religious leaders. At the same time, they deny schoolgirls the basic democratic right to dress themselves according to their beliefs in the name of ‘secularism’.

For the government, there are security concerns involved. Political Islam forms part of the traditional opposition bloc against the Ilayev regime. The government is also determined to resist the influence of neighbouring Iran over Azerbaijan’s predominantly Shia Muslim population. The authorities often accuse religious groups of operating under foreign influence, always without evidence.

The government is also trying to reinforce an official ideology of national unity. Following Azerbaijan's military victory in the Karabakh war, the authorities have increasingly turned declarations of national solidarity and state power into a source of political legitimacy.

And since the outbreak of the Iran War, the Azerbaijani capitalists have been licking their lips at the prospect of selling higher volumes of oil to western powers impacted by the restrictions of exports from the Gulf. Azerbaijan is also Israel’s main supplier of crude oil, accounting for over 40 percent of its imports: materially helping to power the regime currently wreaking hell on Palestine and Iran.

These considerations help explain the regime’s interest in projecting a ‘secular’ image to its imperialist clients.

Anger is growing in Azerbaijan after girls wearing hijabs were barred from schools under new uniform rules. Students and teachers have staged demonstrations, while dozens have reportedly been arrested and users report disruptions to social media platforms. https://t.co/3OQU4UjoPW

But it is not without cost. This new move brought the Azerbaijani ruling class into conflict with its closest ally, Turkey. On 12 October, Oktay Saral, an adviser to Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, criticised the enforcement of the ban. The ruling New Azerbaijan Party described his comments as interference in the country's internal affairs. A dispute over school dress thus developed into a rare public political controversy between Baku and Ankara.

Azerbaijan has a complex relationship with Islamic dress. This is not the first time the question has been at the centre of political protest.

In December 2010, there was a wave of widespread anger over the exclusion of hijab-wearing pupils from lessons. A demonstration involving approximately one thousand people took place outside the Ministry of Education in Baku. Protests continued in the following months, and a number of religious activists faced criminal prosecution and prison sentences.

Historically, the struggle for secular education was bound up with freeing scientific knowledge from the authority of religious institutions, wresting schools from the control of religious bodies and expanding educational opportunities, especially for women.

After the Russian Revolution and the incorporation of Azerbaijan into the Soviet Republic, there was a big advancement in women's literacy, paid work, emancipation from domestic drudgery and participation in public life. The Ali Bayramov Women's Club, established in Baku in 1920, is a striking example of this history.

Through the work of Jeyran Bayramova and other women activists, the club organised literacy classes, vocational training and opportunities for women. The First Congress of Azerbaijani Women, held in February 1921, also adopted important decisions aimed at drawing women into education and public activity. The rejection of the traditional veil became one of the symbols of this process.

However, this progressive expansion of literacy and public participation in the first years after the 1920 revolution in Azerbaijan was displaced by increasingly rigid administrative methods of the Stalinist bureaucracy, which took a crude and aggressive line on enforcing secular dress.

This created resentment amongst the population, helping to reverse much of the social progress of the early years after the revolution. And today, the Ilayev regime invokes ‘secularism’ as part of an offensive against democratic rights and to deny young women an education altogether!

Naturally, there are conservative religious forces bound up in the current hijab protests, as in 2010. But it is clear that the general sentiment of the youth is based on a healthy objection to having their elementary freedoms taken away – not to mention feelings of solidarity towards teachers who stand to lose their employment.

The protests in Azerbaijan are also occurring in tandem with a wave of youth-led protests internationally.

On 9 October, school pupils demonstrated in Vienna against a ban on girls under the age of 14 wearing the hijab at school. In Germany, school pupils have staged collective actions against conscription; in France, millions, led by the youth, have protested and struck over conditions in schools; in Spain, there is a protest movement and general strike planned over the question of housing.

These movements differ in their social composition, political objectives and levels of organisation. In Austria, the hijab ban has emerged within a broader controversy concerning the rights of the Muslim minority, migration, integration and the secular character of the state. In Azerbaijan, by contrast, the overwhelming majority of the population is Muslim, and relations between the state and religious institutions have developed under very different historical conditions.

Nevertheless, the common, furious response of young people is a significant social development. It shows that similar inflammable material exists all over the world that can turn any spark into an inferno.

The problems facing young people in contemporary capitalist societies take different forms. Rising living and housing costs, insecurity in the labour market, problems in education, militarisation and restrictions on democratic rights all shape the outlook of new generations on social relations.

What is distinctive about Azerbaijan is the particularly severe restrictions against organised protest. The spontaneous protests of schoolchildren is an impressive demonstration of courage that also shows the depth of feeling that exists under the iron lid of state repression. It cannot be contained forever.

The direction and political consequences of the October protests remain unresolved. The authorities may make certain concessions, alter the enforcement of the dress regulations, continue repressive measures, or succeed in allowing the discontent gradually to subside. But such a rare display of weakness would only encourage future struggles.

It is also possible that the protests will connect with broader democratic and social demands: the protection of pupils' right to education, guarantees of teachers' labour rights, the right to protest, legal transparency and so on. There is no shortage of potential here in Azerbaijan.

What we are witnessing is only the early tremors of much bigger battles to come. The first cracks have appeared in the seemingly impregnable Ilayev regime, inflicted by the power of solidarity.