{"id":27143,"date":"2016-07-23T04:04:29","date_gmt":"2016-07-23T04:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nigeria-s-muslims-applaud-lifting-of-hijab-ban-in\/"},"modified":"2016-07-23T04:04:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-23T04:04:01","slug":"nigeria-s-muslims-applaud-lifting-of-hijab-ban-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nigeria-s-muslims-applaud-lifting-of-hijab-ban-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria&#8217;s Muslims applaud lifting of hijab ban in Lagos schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{A leading Muslim group in Nigeria has welcomed a court ruling lifting the ban on girls wearing the headscarf in government schools in Lagos state.}<\/p>\n<p>The Muslim Rights Concern (MRC) said the Lagos Court of Appeal&#8217;s ruling was a victory for the rule of law.<\/p>\n<p>The judges said the ban violated the religious rights of Muslim girls, overturning a lower court&#8217;s ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Girls had been barred from wearing the headscarf, or hijab, because it was not part of school uniforms.<\/p>\n<p>The state government has not yet commented on whether it intends to challenge the ruling at the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria&#8217;s population is roughly divided between Muslims and Christians, with both groups being staunch believers.<\/p>\n<p>The majority of Muslims live in the north and Christians primarily are in the south &#8211; though the southern state of Lagos has a more religious mix.<\/p>\n<p>In June, the High Court in the southern state of Osun also lifted the ban on Muslims girls wearing the headscarf.<\/p>\n<p>It caused religious tension in the state, with some Christian boys insisting on wearing church robes to school.<\/p>\n<p>Two Muslim girls challenged the ban in Lagos state, taking their case to its Court of Appeal after the High Court ruled against them in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact that the judgment was unanimous and only two of the five judges are Muslims leaves a firm stamp of authority on the legality of the use of hijab not only by female Muslim students but also by all Muslim women in the country,&#8221; the MRC said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-13734 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_90484773_gettyimages-472758820.jpg\" alt=\"Muslim leaders say girls and women who wear the headscarf should not be &quot;stigmatised&quot;\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{A leading Muslim group in Nigeria has welcomed a court ruling lifting the ban on girls wearing the headscarf in government schools in Lagos state.} The Muslim Rights Concern (MRC) said the Lagos Court of Appeal&#8217;s ruling was a victory for the rule of law. The judges said the ban violated the religious rights of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-27143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27143"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=27143"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=27143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}