German Court Overturns Ban On Headscarves For Female Muslim Teachers

Muslim women teachers can wear headscarves as long as it does not
cause disruption in school, Germany's top court said in a ruling that
overturns an earlier ban and may fuel debate about what some
nationalist groups see as creeping "Islamization". Reutersreports:

The Constitutional Court struck down its own 2003 ban on headscarves
for teachers, which had led some German states to forbid Muslim
headscarves in schools while permitting the use of Christian symbols
such as crucifixes and nuns' habits.

The court in Karlsruhe, ruling on a case brought by a Muslim woman
blocked from a teaching job because of her headscarf, said religious
symbols could only be banned when they posed "not just an abstract but
a concrete risk of disruption in schools".

"This is a good day for religious freedom," said Volker Beck, a
lawmaker from the opposition Greens.

He argued that headgear worn by devout Muslim, Jewish and Christian
women and men was less of a threat to German society than "opponents
of diversity" such as the right-wing Alternative for Germany(AfD),
neo-Nazis and extremist Muslim Salafists.