Krasivanova Twig

Girls under 14 won't be allowed to wear hijabs or burqas in schools.

And this is public schools.

This is private schools across Austria.

If they violate that, then there'll be a series of discussions with the student and their legal guardians.

Eventually, as a last resort, families or guardians could be fined up to 800 euros.

And the government says really they want to empower young girls.

They don't want to force them into a situation where they're having to wear headscarves.

But this has caused quite a lot of concern in other parts of Austria about whether this is constitutional or not.

Yes, in 2020, the then government brought in a similar headscarf ban for girls under the age of 10.

That was struck down by the Constitutional Court because it specifically targeted Muslims.

And although the law today was passed by Parliament,

The coalition, which is three centrist parties, the Conservatives, the Social Democrats and the Liberal Neos, as well as the opposition far-right Freedom Party, there are still concerns that this could still be unconstitutional and could eventually also be struck down because this is something that those critics say specifically targets Muslims and not others.

Well, the opposition Green Party voted against the law.

They said that it was clearly unconstitutional.

And Austria's official Islamic community said the ban violates fundamental rights and it says it will split society.

In a statement on its website, it said that instead of empowering children, it would just mean that they would be stigmatized and marginalized.

And it says it's going to do as much as it can to review the constitutionality of the law and take all the necessary steps.

And it pointed out that the Constitutional Court already in 2020 said that such a ban like this was unconstitutional because it was specifically targeting a religious minority.

I mean, I think it's an interesting situation in Austria because the far-right Freedom Party did actually win last year's elections, but it was unable to form a coalition.

So the present governing coalition is this three-party coalition coalition