Russian forces attacked Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district with “Banderol” missiles on the evening of October 12, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
An entire section of a five-story apartment building “collapsed” in the attack, he said. People may be trapped under the rubble.
Five people were injured, according to the latest update from Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the regional military administration.
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Russian forces attacked Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district with “Banderol” missiles on the evening of October 12, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
An entire section of a five-story apartment building “collapsed” in the attack, he said. People may be trapped under the rubble.
Five people were injured, according to the latest update from Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the regional military administration.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
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The board of Amber Latvijas balzams has called a shareholders’ meeting for November 3 to consider whether the company can continue operating and whether to begin insolvency proceedings. The decision will take shareholders’ proposals into account.
In early October, Amber Latvijas balzams asked the Riga City Court to end its legal protection proceedings.
The company sought court protection in early 2026 after accumulating more than 28 million euros in unpaid taxes owed to the state.
The company attributed its debts to “external problems that have been mounting for years”: the seizure of Amber Beverage Group assets in Russia, a major cyberattack on the company, and “challenges” in global spirits markets.
Under the proceedings, Amber Latvijas balzams was required to develop a debt repayment plan and secure approval before October. Among other provisions, the plan called for repaying in full the principal owed to secured creditors, including the State Revenue Service, Latvia’s tax authority, as well as to suppliers.
The plan was not approved. Amber Latvijas balzams said MBO Beverages, which had acquired debt owed by the Riga Balsam producer from other major creditors, was among the factors that influenced the decision on the plan.
Amber Latvijas balzams said that since the protection proceedings began, it had paid 20.4 million euros in current taxes and had accumulated no new overdue debts. Production in Riga continues.
Amber Latvijas balzams produces Riga Black Balsam, one of Latvia’s best-known alcohol brands. The company is part of billionaire Yuri Shefler’s international Amber Beverage Group.
Meduza’s informal, subjective award is named after Riga Balsam. Each year, the newsroom compiles a list of journalistic pieces that its staff members enjoyed. Those whose work makes the list receive a bottle of Riga Balsam.
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The board of Amber Latvijas balzams has called a shareholders’ meeting for November 3 to consider whether the company can continue operating and whether to begin insolvency proceedings. The decision will take shareholders’ proposals into account.
In early October, Amber Latvijas balzams asked the Riga City Court to end its legal protection proceedings.
The company sought court protection in early 2026 after accumulating more than 28 million euros in unpaid taxes owed to the state.
The company attributed its debts to “external problems that have been mounting for years”: the seizure of Amber Beverage Group assets in Russia, a major cyberattack on the company, and “challenges” in global spirits markets.
Under the proceedings, Amber Latvijas balzams was required to develop a debt repayment plan and secure approval before October. Among other provisions, the plan called for repaying in full the principal owed to secured creditors, including the State Revenue Service, Latvia’s tax authority, as well as to suppliers.
The plan was not approved. Amber Latvijas balzams said MBO Beverages, which had acquired debt owed by the Riga Balsam producer from other major creditors, was among the factors that influenced the decision on the plan.
Amber Latvijas balzams said that since the protection proceedings began, it had paid 20.4 million euros in current taxes and had accumulated no new overdue debts. Production in Riga continues.
Amber Latvijas balzams produces Riga Black Balsam, one of Latvia’s best-known alcohol brands. The company is part of billionaire Yuri Shefler’s international Amber Beverage Group.
Meduza’s informal, subjective award is named after Riga Balsam. Each year, the newsroom compiles a list of journalistic pieces that its staff members enjoyed. Those whose work makes the list receive a bottle of Riga Balsam.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
Russia and the Central African Republic (CAR) have signed a resolution on teaching Russian in the CAR’s schools, the Russian Education Ministry’s press office said.
Under a pilot program, Russian classes will begin at three schools in the CAR for students in sixth grade and above.
The ministry has already supplied the CAR with 500 textbooks for learning Russian as a foreign language. Plans for further cooperation include establishing a Russian-language department at the University of Bangui.
Since 2024, teachers from Russian House in Bangui have taught Russian at private schools in the CAR. On October 1, it emerged that Russian had been added to the country’s public school curriculum.
Mercenaries from the Wagner private military company began operating in the CAR in 2017. In 2023, after the mutiny and the death of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russia’s Defense Ministry took control of them. As of early 2026, about 1,500 Russian mercenaries remained in the CAR, according to a U.S. congressional estimate.
Russia supports CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, who amended the constitution and won reelection to a third term in 2025.
In the September 2026 elections for Russia’s State Duma, United Russia received 79% of the vote in the CAR — its best result among all polling stations abroad. A total of 210 people voted in the Russian elections in the country.
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Russian businesses had been preparing for attacks on data centers long before Ukraine began striking them, the BBC Russian Service reported.
Yandex, for example, regularly held drills to shut down systems and reroute traffic. Russian companies are also buying mobile data centers in large numbers. According to the BBC, one supplier is linked to the son of a senior general in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).
Demand for mobile data centers has increased since late summer, the BBC reported. Buyers include IT companies and mobile operators, as well as medium-sized and large businesses “that need more computing power than a standard PC.”
Suppliers in Russia include Rostelecom subsidiary RTK-TsOD and Yadro, which is part of X Holding. Boris Korolev, the son of FSB First Deputy Director Sergey Korolev, is a deputy CEO of the holding company.
In 2026, Yadro launched Borey, a containerized data center. According to government procurement records analyzed by the BBC, a unit costs 18 million to 25 million rubles without servers; with computing equipment, the price can reach hundreds of millions of rubles. The units have been on sale for several months.
“The headlines are good for sales — too good, in fact,” an industry source told the BBC.
According to the BBC’s sources, people in the industry had been saying since late summer that attacks on Russian data centers were inevitable. Two-thirds of the country’s data centers are concentrated in the Moscow region and St. Petersburg. On October 6, just a couple of days before the first attack on Yandex, Deputy Digital Development Minister Yevgeny Filatov urged companies to move computing capacity “somewhere beyond the Urals, where, fortunately, the strikes haven’t reached yet.”
From October 8 to 11, Ukraine attacked three of Yandex’s six data centers: in Sasovo in the Ryazan region, Kaluga, and Vladimir. The strikes disrupted both Yandex’s own services and those of other companies.
The data centers that came under attack housed all three of Yandex’s supercomputers: “Chervonenkis,” “Lyapunov,” and “Galushkin.” As of the evening of October 11, the extent of any damage to them was unknown. According to Kommersant, replacing damaged equipment could take about six months.
The younger Korolev became a deputy CEO of X Holding in 2023, when he was 27. That same year, Garda, a company in which he held a 20% stake, acquired a stake in the holding company following the death of its founder and owner, Anton Cherepennikov.
Whether the younger Korolev retained his stake is unknown, as the company’s financial reports are not public. Journalist Andrey Zakharov believes the ultimate beneficiary of Boris Korolev’s assets is his father, who had previously registered property worth hundreds of millions of rubles in his son’s name.
In addition to data centers, X Holding supplies equipment for internet traffic filtering systems known as TSPU. Spending on blocking and filtering traffic continues to rise: The new draft budget would allocate 60 billion rubles for these purposes over the next three years — twice the amount previously planned. It is unknown how much of this money will go to X Holding.
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Germany and the European Union do not plan to follow the U.S. example and strike a deal with Russia for diesel supplies, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, according to Der Spiegel.
Such a decision is unacceptable to Germany and Europe. Russia will only negotiate seriously under pressure, so we are maintaining our sanctions against it.
Merz said Russia had responded to Donald Trump’s proposal for an energy ceasefire with fresh strikes on Ukraine’s civilian and energy infrastructure. In these circumstances, he said, sanctions against Moscow must be tightened further, and Berlin will continue supporting Kyiv.
Criticism of Trump’s deal with Russia extends beyond Merz and his fellow Christian Democratic Union (CDU) members. “First start a war against Iran with no discernible plan, driving up energy prices worldwide — and then make a deal with Putin, who started the war, to cushion the fallout before the U.S. midterms — it doesn’t get more unscrupulous than that,” Der Spiegel quoted Green Party co-leader Franziska Brantner as saying.
Merz, meanwhile, is in an extremely weak position: His approval rating has hit a record low, and his CDU is losing regional elections.
In the same speech criticizing Trump’s diesel deal with Russia, Merz again promised to cut the electricity tax for all German residents to the minimum allowed in the EU. His party made that promise to voters before the February 2025 Bundestag elections but has yet to fulfill it.
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Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius suggested more strikes on Russian data centers when asked at the Warsaw Security Forum how European countries could protect their elections from interference, LRT reported.
I think we should ask Mr. Zelensky to strike more data centers in Russia, and that might help.
During his remarks, Sinkevičius also urged European countries to invest more in defense and strengthen security cooperation. He said Europe needs to learn from Ukraine’s experience, arguing that European safety will benefit from increased information sharing, joint procurement, joint production, and joint exercises with Kyiv.
Sinkevičius said the top priorities for both Lithuania and NATO as a whole were air defense, protection against drones, and countering hybrid threats.
Over four days, Ukrainian drones struck three Yandex data centers in Russia. The company’s services are still down. Replacing the damaged equipment will take about six months and will be expensive because of sanctions and a global shortage of computing capacity.
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State Duma members Vasily Piskarev and Eduard Valeyev of United Russia have drafted a bill to toughen penalties for public calls for terrorism and mass unrest. The government has backed the bill, TASS reported, citing an official cabinet assessment the news agency obtained.
For public calls for mass unrest, the bill would raise the maximum term for court-ordered restrictions on offenders’ movements from two to three years and the maximum sentences of forced labor and imprisonment from two to four years. Calls for unrest made online would carry up to six years in prison.
For public calls for terrorism, the bill would also set a two-year minimum and a six-year maximum for an additional penalty barring offenders from holding certain positions or engaging in certain activities. Currently, there is no minimum, and the maximum is five years.
The lawmakers said the amendments were needed to “strengthen the deterrent effect of criminal law.”
They said public calls for terrorism are often made “in closed groups whose members have no intention of reporting what is happening to law enforcement” or assisting the authorities. For that reason, the lawmakers believe the additional penalty barring offenders from engaging in certain activities should have a minimum term and a higher maximum.
TASS did not specify whether the bill had been submitted to the State Duma or when the lawmakers planned to submit it.
According to OVD-Info, calls for terrorism under Article 205.2 of Russia’s Criminal Code remained the most common charge in political cases in 2025, with 102 criminal investigations opened under that article. In 2024, 147 investigations were opened under it.
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Deloitte, one of the world’s largest consulting and auditing firms, helped falsify documents to conceal Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s wealth and enable him to evade taxes, according to a joint investigation by the BBC and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ). The Guardian published a separate report on the same case.
The investigations draw on leaked documents and emails from MeritServus, a Cyprus-based corporate services provider previously reported to have managed Abramovich’s businesses. One episode dates to 2006, when Cyprus passed a law requiring companies to publish their financial statements. At the time, Abramovich’s assets were held by the Cypriot company Amiscan Investments. Its balance sheet listed $672 million in assets: a mansion in the English county of West Sussex, an apartment in London, an estate in southern France, helicopters, private jets, and yachts, including the 115-meter (377-foot) Pelorus. Abramovich reportedly owned all these assets at the time.
Abramovich’s aides and MeritServus decided to transfer the assets to Amiscan’s parent company in the British Virgin Islands, where companies did not have to disclose their financial statements. According to the investigation, they backdated the paperwork to make it appear that the transfer had taken place in 2003.
Deloitte’s Cyprus office reviewed the documents and deemed them sufficient to remove the assets from Amiscan’s financial statements, leaving it with just $75,000 in assets. The Guardian reported that emails in the leaked files show Deloitte Cyprus employees took part in discussions about this scheme to make the assets “disappear.” Deloitte signed off on Amiscan’s financial statements with the valuable assets removed.
Deloitte headquarters in Limassol, April 2023
Another episode described in the investigations involves the Cypriot company Kravin Investments. In May 2003, its accounts held about $2 billion that Abramovich had received from selling assets in Russia. Some of the money was lent to other companies. All these funds should have been subject to tax in Cyprus. But documents show that Abramovich’s advisers soon began devising a plan to “eliminate” tax liabilities that could be “very large.”
They decided to alter Kravin’s financial statements and accounting records for 2003 and 2004 retroactively. The documents made it appear that Kravin did not own the funds but merely managed them on behalf of its parent company in the British Virgin Islands. This allowed the advisers to claim that the Cypriot company had no taxable income.
Citing the leaked correspondence, the BBC reported that Abramovich’s advisers devised the tax evasion plan after meeting with Deloitte representatives.
Another scheme concerns Electus Investments, a Cypriot company linked to Abramovich. Its accounts held $10 billion. Leaked emails show that in 2006, MeritServus proposed backdating documents to make it appear that a company with the same name in the British Virgin Islands had owned these assets since 2003. As a result, when the Cypriot company’s financial statements became public, its accounts showed just $145,000.
Abramovich’s lawyers denied any wrongdoing and said he had relied on advice from his advisers and Deloitte’s Cyprus office. Deloitte Cyprus said it had always complied with local law. It said it could not comment on the specific allegations because the documents and correspondence cited by the journalists concerned events from 20 years ago and were “no longer accessible.”
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Alexus Grynkewich at a forum in Warsaw, October 12, 2026
General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said NATO forces would destroy “anything and everything” involved in any Russian attack on the alliance’s territory. He presented his “theory of victory” at a security conference in Warsaw.
Bloomberg reported a week earlier that Grynkewich would present a “quick victory” strategy for responding to a Russian advance on the alliance’s eastern flank. Reuters reported that he did not explicitly mention Russia in his speech, but his message was clearly directed at the Kremlin.
Grynkewich said NATO is a defensive alliance but will thwart, repel, and crush any attacks on its members:
If someone is foolish enough to attack us, we will fight. […] We will, in short, ensure any attack, against any ally, proves utterly futile.
In Reuters’ assessment, the general signaled to Moscow that, if necessary, NATO would launch large-scale retaliatory strikes against both the forces directly involved in the attack and facilities beyond the area under attack. “Should the adversary choose to press the attack or commit his reserves, we will break the warfighting system engaged against us,” Grynkewich said. “This includes not just the attacking force itself, but anything and everything that supports, sustains, and controls that force.”
He said that if NATO territory comes under attack, its forces would not allow the enemy to gain a foothold on the alliance’s territory. The aim, he said, is to reduce the enemy’s offensive capabilities until it can no longer continue fighting. Grynkewich believes this approach should underpin a deterrence strategy in which any escalation by the aggressor backfires.
Grynkewich said a key factor in deterring Russia is consistently and unambiguously showing that NATO is ready to repel any aggression.
The Wall Street Journal reported details of Grynkewich’s “theory of victory.” The plan calls for creating an extensive “autonomous zone” on the eastern flank, where drones and “ground robots” (probably ground drones) could hold back a Russian advance without heavy losses among NATO troops.
At the same time, long-range missiles would strike Russian command posts and air defense systems in the Kaliningrad region, near St. Petersburg, and in Belarus. The strikes are intended to undermine Russia’s ability to control the skies and allow the U.S. Army’s V Corps and other NATO ground forces to counterattack.
NATO aircraft would also need to strike Russian reinforcements quickly as they move toward the battlefield, along with other targets in the rear.
A system allowing NATO allies to share classified targeting data instantly through cloud infrastructure would make these strikes possible. Some elements of the system have already been tested in the Middle East during the U.S. attack on Iran.
The German tabloid Bild reported on a similar NATO plan in mid-August 2026. The article said NATO has a plan for a military response to a Russian attack on the Baltic states. Among other things, it calls for the alliance’s missiles and drones to disable Russian missile systems, including those in Kaliningrad.
The Wall Street Journal reported that while Grynkewich was speaking in Warsaw, more than 20,000 military personnel from various NATO countries were taking part in a 10-day command-post exercise called “Steadfast Duel.” The exercise was intended, among other things, to simulate one million NATO troops repelling an invasion from the east by an army of comparable size. The newspaper reported that other exercises also rehearsed strikes with ground-launched missiles to disable enemy command posts.
In late September, Russia’s embassy in Ireland claimed its diplomats were receiving information about NATO preparations for an air and naval blockade of the Kaliningrad region. The diplomats said that if this happened, Russia would be prepared to use any weapon, including nuclear weapons. The same warning appears in a document Russia sent to NATO that Reuters obtained. In it, Moscow accuses the alliance of pursuing a “dangerous and reckless course” that carries “high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict.”
If it comes to a direct attack on the Russian Federation — in this case, we mean Kaliningrad, perhaps other territories as well — then, of course, Russia’s use of all the weapons at our country’s disposal will inevitably and immediately be on the table. That is inevitable.
In its written response to the Kremlin, NATO said none of the alliance’s exercises or activities pose a threat to Russian territory.
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A powerful storm swept through Russia’s Kaliningrad region on October 9. In Kaliningrad, gusty winds toppled trees and brought down power lines. Authorities put the city on heightened alert. Residents were advised to avoid going out unless necessary, and attendance at schools and kindergartens was made optional. The Kaliningrad Zoo closed, and flights were delayed at Khrabrovo Airport.
A storm near Svetlogorsk. October 9, 2026
Near Svetlogorsk, the storm tore loose a lifting platform belonging to the company Geoisol. The company’s assets, including the platform, are under a seizure order. Regional authorities said there was no risk of water pollution. A criminal investigation was opened into the incident under a law covering violations of safety rules for maritime navigation and vessel operation.
The Sunny Faith at the shoreline in Yantarny after the storm. October 9, 2026
In Yantarny, the storm drove the Bahamas-flagged dry cargo ship Sunny Faith ashore. The vessel had arrived in Kaliningrad from Algeria, stopping along the way at the Spanish port of Algeciras. The Kaliningrad regional government’s press office said the Sunny Faith had no cargo aboard and no fuel spill had occurred. The crew chose to stay aboard and wait for the weather to improve rather than evacuate.
Sunny Faith. October 9, 2026
The enormous cargo ship at the shoreline — 129.9 meters (about 426 feet) long and more than 23 meters (about 75 feet) wide — briefly became a tourist attraction. Residents of the Kaliningrad region and tourists posed for photos and filmed videos with the ship in the background. “There’s a huge ship right on the shore!” someone said in one such video, according to the news outlet Klops. Russian Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov, a former governor of the Kaliningrad region, was also photographed with the Sunny Faith in the background.
Sunny Faith. October 9, 2026
Visitors will be able to see the Sunny Faith for at least a few more days. As of October 12, the ship was still at the shoreline. Sources told Klops that further surveys involving divers would probably be needed to determine how to refloat it.
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RFE/RL’s Balkan Service and the investigative project Sistema have identified a diplomat at the Russian Embassy in Serbia who was declared persona non grata in Bulgaria in 2021 during an investigation into explosions at weapons depots.
Alexander Krasiy, an assistant military attaché, held the same position at the Russian Embassy in Bulgaria before moving to Serbia. In April 2021, Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said it was expelling a Russian diplomat but did not name him. The news agency Zona News and Bulgarian National Television identified him as Krasiy.
The decision came amid an investigation into explosions at four weapons depots and production facilities between 2011 and 2020. Bulgarian prosecutors suspected six Russians of involvement. According to prosecutors, the explosions may have been linked to the attempted poisoning of Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev and were intended to “halt deliveries of military supplies to Georgia and Ukraine.”
After his expulsion, Krasiy resurfaced in Serbia. In 2021, he was photographed among instructors and participants in a professional development course at the University of Defense in Belgrade. He received accreditation as an assistant military attaché in 2026.
The journalists said Krasiy may have ties to Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Leaked records show that when he applied for a “COVID pass” during the pandemic, he listed his home address as a dormitory at the “Conservatory” — a nickname for the GRU’s Military Diplomatic Academy. Many graduates went on to become Russian intelligence officers and saboteurs, including Anatoly Chepiga.
According to The Telegraph, Russian intelligence services used Serbia as a base to prepare an unsuccessful sabotage attempt at Leipzig Airport in August 2026. The suspected organizer, Oleg Levushkin, left Europe through Serbia, while his accomplice, Maxim Lapunov, entered Europe through Belgrade. Investigators believe the explosives intended to blow up a Ukrainian aircraft may also have reached Germany through Serbia.
In September 2026, Agentstvo included Krasiy on a list of 29 Russian Embassy employees in Serbia with confirmed or possible ties to intelligence services. The outlet said Russia’s embassy and trade mission in Serbia employ a total of 78 people, while just 18 Russian diplomats work in neighboring Bulgaria, which has a comparable population.
Krasiy is not the first Russian diplomat to continue working in Serbia after being expelled from the EU. In 2023, RFE/RL found that at least three Russian diplomats expelled from the EU after the start of the war had received accreditation in Serbia. Two of them were found to have ties to Russian intelligence services.
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Television “healer” Anatoly Kashpirovsky will be buried in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, his nephew told TASS.
“The coffin is currently at a terminal in Istanbul. It’s expected to arrive in Warsaw late tonight. Then it will be taken by train to Kyiv, and from there to Vinnytsia,” he said.
Kashpirovsky’s nephew told RBC that before his death, Kashpirovsky had asked for some of his ashes to be taken to Vinnytsia, where his mother is buried, and the rest to remain in Russia.
Kashpirovsky died October 3 at age 87. An official memorial service was held at Troyekurovskoye Cemetery on October 8.
Kashpirovsky was born in 1939 in the village of Stavnytsia in the Ukrainian SSR’s Khmelnytskyi region. He graduated from a medical institute in Vinnytsia and later worked in the city for many years.
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Azerbaijani authorities arrested 37 people in Baku over protests against new school uniform rules, Minval reported, citing Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry. According to Minval, protesters clashed with school staff and tried to disrupt school operations and traffic.
В Азербайджане начались протесты из-за запрета на ношение хиджаба
Местные телерам-каналы публикуют видео с митингами возле школ.
В Азербайджане начала действовать единая школьная форма, а правительство запретило использовать элементы одежды, нарушающие ее единообразие или… pic.twitter.com/MuZ1AEE5YR
Protesters also tried to set fires, Minval reported. In Baku’s Garadagh district, they set fire to a school director’s car, and in the Yasamal district, they tried to set fire to a school. No one was injured in either incident.
A criminal case has been opened on charges of “organizing actions that disrupt public order, or actively participating in such actions.” The maximum penalty under that charge is up to three years in prison.
Azerbaijan’s government approved new rules on school uniforms on September 21, barring students from attending classes in clothing that contradicts the secular nature of education and undermines the uniformity of the school dress code. Starting October 6, similar requirements have extended to teachers’ clothing as well.
Schoolchildren protest outside a school in Azerbaijan, in a video that shows pupils boycotting classes.
The protests follow reports that a new “secular” dress code recently introduced by the government has led to hijab-wearing pupils and teachers being barred from school… pic.twitter.com/tLQ7gzewQa
On October 12, schools began checking compliance with the new requirements, the APA news agency reported. Students who came to school improperly dressed were given talks involving school doctors and psychologists, and their parents were invited to the school for an explanation.
Azerbaijani authorities say the ban on religious clothing in schools is necessary to ensure equality among students. A uniform dress code is meant to smooth over social and religious differences among children, Azerbaijani lawmaker Sevinj Fataliyeva explained:
The requirements for school uniforms should not be seen as a fight against anyone’s religious faith, but as protection of a neutral educational space: a space where a child is not divided into “religious” and “non-religious,” rich and poor, or belonging to one group or another. Before the teacher sits a student.
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