Child at centre of ‘headscarf crisis’ transfers schools

A child who was turned away from a school in northern Nicosia when attempting to go to class wearing a hijab on Monday officially left the school.

The girl had been enrolled at the Irsen Kucuk middle school in the suburb of Ortakoy, and her arrival in a hijab on March 27 led to a standoff between the girl’s parents and schoolteachers, with her parents insisting that she be allowed to enter the premises and teachers refusing to acquiesce.

In the end, ‘education ministry’ undersecretary Yusuf Inaniroglu was sent to mediate, though opposition-supporting media reported that Inaniroglu attempted to “pressure” the school into allowing the hijab-wearing child to enter, and photographs emerged of a heated exchange inside headmistress Gulden Ogcum’s office.

Ogcum then fainted and was treated by paramedics, but backup was offered by teachers from other schools who travelled to the Irsen Kucuk middle school to ensure that the child would not enter while wearing a hijab.

Cyprus Turkish secondary education teachers’ union (Ktoeos) secretary-general Tahir Gokcebel confirmed to newspaper Yeniduzen that the girl had formally transferred out of the school, while news website Haber Kibris reported that she had enrolled at the Hala Sultan theology college in Mia Milia.

Meanwhile, with the matter being discussed in the north’s ‘parliament’ for the first time on Monday after unruly backbenchers from the ruling coalition’s largest party the UBP returned to the building for the first time in a week, teachers prepared to light the first of the nightly fires outside the building.

Cyprus Turkish teachers’ trade union (Ktos) leader Burak Mavis had told the Cyprus Mail on Friday that fires will be list every night outside ‘parliament’ until April 28, the “deadline” trade unions have set the ruling coalition for the hijabs’ legalisation to be withdrawn.

However, ‘education minister’ Nazim Cavusoglu on Monday fired a shot across the bows of any children wishing to show support for their teachers’ positions.

“We are not giving permission for any of our pupils to participate in these actions. Trade unions are hiding behind Kemalist thoughts and secularism, and they are making pupils their helmets,” he said.

He also insisted that the legalisation of hijabs in schools “will not erode the Kemalist idea in this country”, and called for the discussion on the matter to be “taken out of the atmosphere of profanity and discussed in a legal and constitutional sense”.

This is something of a step back on his part, given that he had said last Wednesday that  the matter is “not up for discussion”.