The protests began outside state schools in the capital, Baku, and several southern districts, including Masally and Jalilabad, after the Education Ministry started enforcing the rules last Monday.

Videos circulating on social media show female students wearing hijabs challenging school staff and questioning why they must remove their headscarves to attend classes.

In one video, a teenage girl wearing a navy blue hijab asks a staff member, “You are telling me, I can't come to school?” She then questions why she should have to give up her religion, while other girls standing behind her applaud.

Another video shows students outside School No. 69 in Balakhany, near Baku, holding a banner that reads, “The hijab does not prevent anyone from getting an education.”

Protests are uncommon in Azerbaijan, a country of around 10.5 million people that produces oil and gas and maintains a constitutionally secular system.

President Ilham Aliyev has been in power since 2003, and his government has faced criticism over restrictions on dissent. Opposition politicians and independent journalists have been jailed.

Azerbaijan defends school uniform rules

The new rules, approved on September 21, prohibit clothing considered contrary to the principle of secularism in education at state schools. Although the guidelines do not explicitly mention the hijab, authorities have begun turning away female students wearing Islamic headscarves.

Similar guidelines were extended to teachers on October 6.

Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry said it detained 37 people on Monday for attempting to obstruct the implementation of the rules and “grossly violate public order”.

The enforcement has also raised concerns among families whose children have been prevented from attending school.

Shahiza Huseynova, a mother who protested outside a school in Baku’s Mashtaga district, was detained on Tuesday.

Speaking to Meydan TV, an independent Azerbaijani-language broadcaster based in Germany, her husband, Agha, said she had received a warning that she must remove her child’s hijab and send the child to school or face imprisonment.

Meanwhile, friends have lost contact with activist Ilkin Huseynov, who launched an online platform called “Let Leyli Go to School” on Tuesday. The initiative offers free lessons from volunteer teachers to pupils barred from classrooms.

According to a friend, Huseynov left his home in Baku with unidentified men at around 4pm on Wednesday. His phone has remained switched off since then.

Authorities have not commented on his reported disappearance, while friends believe he may have been detained. The platform’s Instagram page was also inaccessible on Thursday.

Social media users have reported difficulties accessing Instagram and TikTok without a virtual private network (VPN) since the protests began.

Religious tensions and concerns over Iran

Most demonstrations have taken place in religiously conservative settlements on the outskirts of Baku and in southern districts near Azerbaijan’s 765-kilometre border with Iran.

The Azerbaijani government has long expressed concern about Iranian religious influence. More ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran than in Azerbaijan itself.

The dispute comes amid broader tensions involving religion, national identity and the country’s secular political system.

On October 13, Azerbaijan’s State Service for Special Communications and Information Security said a foreign hacker group had attacked more than 100 government websites.

A pro-Iranian group calling itself the 313 Team, or Cyber Islamic Resistance, claimed responsibility for the cyberattack.

Azerbaijani officials have defended the school restrictions. Lawmaker Nigar Arpadarai told the 1news.az website that children were influenced by their families when it came to wearing the hijab.

“A child has no freedom to choose a religion. This is a conscious prerogative of adults,” she said.

Hijab dispute strains Azerbaijan-Turkey ties

The controversy has extended beyond Azerbaijan, drawing criticism from Turkey, its closest ally.

The two countries describe their relationship as “one nation, two states”. Turkey provided significant support to Azerbaijan during its 2020 war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a practising Muslim, has repeatedly advocated the creation of a “pious generation”.

His chief adviser, Oktay Saral, criticised Azerbaijan’s restrictions as “unacceptable” and called on Baku to reverse the decision.

“A headscarf is not an obstacle; it is a requirement of one's faith!” Saral wrote on X.

Several lawmakers from Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) also criticised the restrictions.

Small demonstrations were held outside Azerbaijan’s embassy in Ankara, organised by Köklü Değişim, an Islamist movement linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir, and outside the Azerbaijani consulate in Istanbul, organised by the conservative Islamist group Özgür-Der.

Azerbaijan’s ruling New Azerbaijan Party responded by accusing Turkish officials of conducting an “openly defamatory” information campaign and making “baseless accusations”.

The party warned that Saral’s comments could damage bilateral relations and urged Turkey not to interfere in Azerbaijan’s internal affairs.

Earlier this month, Aliyev said no one should “stick their noses into our way of life”.

Israel adds another dimension to the dispute

The disagreement may also reflect differences over Azerbaijan’s relationship with Israel.

Turkish protesters have linked the headscarf restrictions to Baku’s close ties with Israel, which supplies weapons to Azerbaijan and purchases Azerbaijani oil.

Turkey’s relations with Israel have deteriorated sharply over the war in Gaza, while Azerbaijan has sought to maintain relations with both countries.

The balancing act was evident on Thursday when Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed a regional security summit hosted by Azerbaijan in Baku.

Delegations from Turkey, Iran and several other countries walked out of the hall during his address.

The developments highlight the competing religious, political and diplomatic interests surrounding the school headscarf dispute, which has prompted rare public protests inside Azerbaijan and exposed differences between two countries that have traditionally maintained close ties.