GERMANY: Germany's battle over headscarves in the classroom has taken a new turn with a law banning all religious symbols in schools, including crucifixes and habits.
The law, agreed by the government in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, rankles with conservatives and church leaders.
"I find it inappropriate to equate the crucifix and a headscarf," said Hermann Gröhe, a CDU MP, to Germany's Bild newspaper.
Germany's headscarf row appeared to be settled three years ago when the constitutional court ruled that state governments could either allow all teachers to wear religious symbols in the classroom or ban them all, a ruling seen to uphold the freedom of religious expression guarantee contained in the constitution.
But the court left the implementation up to the federal states, which are responsible for education in Germany.
The government in Schleswig-Holstein - a mirror of the Christian Democrat/Social Democrat grand coalition in Berlin - said that its plan to ban outright all symbols was the best way to react to the ruling.
But it is a different story elsewhere in Germany, where many CDU-ruled federal states have passed laws that explicitly ban headscarves yet still permit crucifixes, religious robes and Jewish kippas to be worn in the classroom. Consequently, individual teachers have taken state governments to court to assert their rights under the 2003 constitutional court ruling.
Last month Stuttgart teacher Doris Graber won a six-year court battle against the state government in Baden-Württemberg over her right to wear a headscarf during lessons. Ms Graber began teaching in her school in 1973, converted to Islam a decade later and began to wear a headscarf for religious reasons in 1995. Five years later, state school authorities ordered her to remove her headscarf.
After several legal battles, judges decided in favour of Ms Graber because elsewhere in the state three nuns were permitted to teach lessons wearing a full religious habit.
Both sides of the argument claim to have the constitution on their side. Conservatives see the headscarf as a symbol of Muslim oppression of women, which is incompatible with German law. For the Green Party and left-wing groups, the headscarf is a freely-chosen symbol of religious expression, which is defended by the constitution.
Since the 2003 constitutional ruling, eight of Germany's 16 state governments have imposed a ban on headscarves in schools. Some have gone further, banning headscarves in all public-service positions, such as the state of Hesse. Now the Hesse state government faces a court challenge from one of its own state prosecutors.
"There is no privileged religion in the Hesse state constitution nor the basic law [ constitution]. All are to be treated equally," said state prosecutor Ute Sacksofsky.