For the full report in the Sofia News Agency click on this link
Headscarf Dilemma Puzzles Bulgaria - by Ekaterina Terzieva
Bulgaria has become caught up in the European row over Islamic dress, after a university said it considered recruiting big number of Turkish students who want to study while wearing veils. Since more than 200 religious Turkish women recently opted to pursue university education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the attitude to Islamic dress is relaxed, they now seem to be exploring opportunities in Bulgaria.Under Turkey's secular laws, civil servants, teachers and pupils are forbidden from covering their heads in public in accordance with Islamic religious tradition.
While the academy in Plovdiv can expect an extra 440,000 euro per year from these fee-paying students, the request has generated a local controversy about secularism - and about the country's image on the eve of expected EU membership. The head of the academy, Georgi Paskalev, said 80 per cent of the national academic council had voted against the move, leaving him in a quandary over how to proceed. "I did not give a firm answer to these 110 girls from Turkey because I never had a case like this before and don't know how to proceed," he told Balkan Insight.
