Turkish Cypriot teachers locked out of school as headscarf saga continues

Turkish Cypriot teachers were locked out of a school in north Cyprus on Friday as relations between them and the government continue to sour over the government’s decision to legalise the wearing of hijabs at public schools.

Cyprus Turkish secondary education teachers’ trade union (Ktoeos) secretary-general Tahir Gokcebel confirmed to the on Friday that all the doors at the Bekirpasha high school in Iskele had been locked.

He said their locking out had come about after the ‘education ministry’ had insisted that midterm examinations, which were supposed to go ahead in March, go ahead this week.

The exams had been cancelled in March when teachers refused to work after the ruling coalition legalised hijabs at schools, and a small number of children arrived at the Iskele school wearing religious garments.

One girl had even arrived at school wearing a black Chador – a full-body cloak which covers the body from head to toe, leaving only the face exposed. Meanwhile, a boy turned up in a taqiyah, which is a small round skullcap.

A further teachers’ strike notwithstanding, lessons had in general gone ahead thereafter with no children wearing head coverings allowed into the school.

However, Gokcebel said, with just days to go until the year’s final exams, the ‘ministry’ decided to produce a new programme for the midterm exams to take place the week before the final exams.

“No one wants these exams now, no parents signed up for this, and the children do not want it either. It is not right. We decided instead to teach lessons this week and prepare the children for the forthcoming final exams,” he said.

However, he said, “the headteacher, on instructions from the ministry, of course, and in communication with the [Turkish] embassy, decided to lock all the doors to stop us from holding lessons, and said the doors would only open for exams”.

He said that as a result, children and teachers have been waiting in the school’s yard to be able to have lessons, with some lessons taking place outside where possible.

“According to the academic calendar, which is published every year, what we are doing is legal. This week is for lessons, and next week they have the final exams,” he said, adding that protests and other actions against the source of the initial disagreement, the headscarves, would go on.

The incident comes a month after teachers at the Bekirpasha high school had gone on a one-day strike, with Ktoeos leader Selma Eylem saying the Cyprus Mail at the time that the school’s headteacher has been “calling teachers to his office and pressuring them” over the matter.

Additionally, she said, a letter was sent by the ‘education ministry’ to the school announcing that an investigation would be launched into the teachers’ refusal to teach children who had arrived at school wearing religious garments after the ruling coalition legalised it.

The ruling coalition had initially legalised the wearing of hijabs in schools midway through March, but faced a fierce backlash from teachers, the majority of whom are staunchly secular, before withdrawing the law shortly thereafter.

Turkish Cypriots have in large numbers rejected the hijab law, taking to the streets of Nicosia in their thousands on three separate occasions since the law was enacted, with numerous smaller such protests having taken place in the meantime.

The most recent of those protests came at the end of a general strike across the north, while teachers have also taken the matter to court.

The matter has also escalated beyond Cyprus, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan having made his own intervention during a visit to Cyprus earlier this month.

“If you try to mess with our girls’ headscarves in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, I am sorry, you will find us against you,” he had said.

Cyprus Mail