MOSCOW - Three Muslim women went to court in Russia's Tatarstan region Friday to argue that they must not be forced to take off their headscarves for official identification photographs, a news agency reported.
A court in the regional capital Kazan heard opening arguments from the plaintiffs and Interior Ministry officials and set the next hearing for Aug. 2, Interfax said.
A legal expert for a group that unites Muslims in western Russia, Anver Galyamov, said he believed the case was the first of its kind in the nation. Russia is predominantly Orthodox Christian but Muslims form the second-largest religious group.
In Tatarstan a large portion of the population is Muslim, and an increasing number of ethnic Tatars have begun practicing Islam again in the decade since the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union.
The plaintiffs, three women from the city of Nizhnekamsk, filed suit after the Interior Ministry's passport and visa service barred them from wearing head coverings in ID photographs. The main form of identification in Russia is a document called an internal passport that is required for all adult citizens.
The plaintiffs cited the Quran, the Muslim holy book. Islam calls on women to be modestly dressed, and Islamic law in most Muslim societies requires women to cover their heads in public.
The women say forcing them to be photographed without headscarves violates their rights and dignity, Interfax reported. They said if a Muslim woman is without a head covering in her passport photo, any official can ask her to take off her scarf for ID purposes, which would shame her.
In Moscow, a top Muslim leader said he supports the women's request to cover their heads for the photographs.
"It's a matter of conscience for every Muslim woman and her natural right," Interfax quoted Talgat Tadzhuddin, Russia's senior mufti, as saying.
"If there is freedom of conscience in this country, it should be implemented in life," he said.
A representative of Tatarstan's passport and visa service, Alexei Nikolayev, told the court in Kazan that a headscarf makes identification difficult because it covers the ears, neck and hair and hides the shape of the face, Interfax reported.
According to Interfax, the Russian Interior Ministry's passport and visa service ruled in 1998 that head coverings could be worn for identification photographs in some exceptional circumstances, but revoked that ruling last month