SWEET! Ajerbaijan police beat up Muslims protesting hijab (headbag) ban in schools

In Azerbaijan’s capital, police officers wielding batons fought running battles with about 200 Muslim activists who were protesting a ban on the wearing of head scarves in the nation’s secondary schools.

 Sexy dancers personify how much Azerbaijan relishes its anti-Iran role: The secular, Western-leaning country is socially and religiously tolerant, offering itself as a model of a nonsectarian Muslim-majority society.

NY Times 72 people were arrested, the police said. Some of the protesters carried placards with slogans like “Stop Islamophobia” and “Freedom for the hijab.” The Muslim head scarf, or hijab, is prohibited under rules that define what kind of uniforms students must wear in Azerbaijan, a mainly Shiite Muslim country where the authorities have been seeking to prevent the rise of radical Islam.