Muslims Must Bare Head in Passports
Thu Mar 6, 8: 14 AM ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by Muslim women to cover their hair for passport photographs in what rights activists say is a sign of Moscow's growing anti-Islamic stance.

"The Supreme Court rejected the complaint lodged by the Muslim women today," a spokesman told Reuters.

Devout Muslim women are required to wear a headscarf, or hijab, and cover much of their bodies as it is considered sinful for a woman to reveal her hair or skin to anyone other than her husband or immediate relatives.

Human rights groups have long accused Russia, which has 20 million Muslims in its 147 million population, of fostering anti-Islamic feelings as part of Moscow's bid to halt a separatist rebellion in the mainly Muslim province of Chechnya.

"Today's Court ruling is an egregious violation of basic human rights aimed at humiliating Muslim women. It is a slap in the face...and it is a war against Islam in general," said Geidar Zhamal of Russia's prominent Human Rights Institute.

The Interior Ministry says wearing a headscarf or any other head gear in a passport picture makes identification difficult.

"Anti-Islamic sentiment might have played a role (in the ruling)," Farid Zagidulla, the plaintiff's lawyer, told Interfax news agency, adding the women planned to appeal to the Supreme Court and could go to the European Court of Human Rights.

The women were appealing a ruling by a court in Russia's mostly Muslim province of Tatarstan that they did not have the right to wear a headscarf in passport photographs.

Moscow has linked Chechen separatism to what it calls international terrorism and has joined Washington in fighting Islamic militancy following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the October theater siege in Moscow.