On religion

While I was reading an article on Ferghana.ru, which talked about village school teachers prohibiting hijabs at school, and extending my thoughts that this fact contradicts between recent decision to allow passport photos in hijabs , I got an sms that read "Allahu -lailaha-illaila-muhammadun-rasullulah" (God is only one and Mohammad is his messenger).

That felt creepy... Not that I am into these things, but it got me thinking for a bit, until I discovered that it was my friend, who tried to stick to the rules of sms chain that "require" you to send it further.

As for the issue with hijabs, I was surprised to learn that teachers in Nookat (town in the south KG) remove hijabs forcefully from schoolgirls heads and threaten with expulsion. Many of them explain this by the "orders from the top" but do not present any papers or documents confirming these orders.

Another argument from a school director seemed totally ridiculous to me. She states that it is not "aesthetic" to wear a hijab and accused some girls of not combing their hair under the scarf. It sounded very... soviet. Typical coercive methods and intrusion with personal life.

Recent permission to take pictures in hijabs seem to contradict the so called "orders from the top", since having such a photo in your passport, automatically assumes you wear it everyday. Although, not long ago, I read not a single picture has been taken with a hijab on yet, those young schoolgirls from Nookat, who are struggling for their religious rights, will do that for sure.

On the other hand, while government is rather loose on religious rights, security services are increasingly active in combating religious extremism (e.g. Hizb-ut-Tahrir) and maybe dicating their own "underground" rules to schools (and many other institutions for that matter).

All in all, a small ship "Kyrgyzstan" is still lost in political ocean, in many terms: ideology, governance, economy etc.

PS I hope "they" won't knock on my door for having that sms.