DUSHANBE, July 31, Asia-Plus — Consideration of a lawsuit filed by Davlatmo Ismoilova, a student at Tajik State Institute of Languages, against her institute and the Ministry of Education (MoE), which was supposed to be considered in a city court in Dushanbe today, has been postponed to another day.
Ismoilova”s lawsuit accuses her university, along with the ministry, of not allowing her to wear a headscarf to school and thus violating her rights.
Ismoilova’s defense lawyer Shuhrat Qudratov told journalists that consideration of the lawsuit had been postponed because a district court in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district had considered a complaint lodged him on the trial minute. According to him, Mukhtor Isoyev, a judge with the Dushanbe city court, ordered the court of lower instance to consider the lawyer complaint, add it to the case and send the case to the city court. “In all, it should not take more than five years and after that consideation of the lawsuit should begin in the city court,” Qudratov said.
We will recall that the court in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour on July 12 dismissed the lawsuit by Davlatmo Ismoilova against the Institute and the Ministry of Education ban on Islamic headscarves. Judge Abdullo Rahmatov, who took in the trial, dismissed the case, told journalists that the case had been dismissed on the grounds that Davlatmo Ismoilova and her defense lawyer had failed to produce any convincing proofs to support their complaint.
The case is believed to be Tajikistan”s first reported legal challenge to the ban passed earlier this year on Islamic headscarves. 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, accusing the Institute and the MoE of not allowing her to wear a headscarf to the Institute and thus violating her rights.
