Fereshta Ludin (born 1972 in

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

) is a German teacher of

Afghan Afghan or Afgan may refer to: Related to Afghanistan *Afghans, historically refers to the Pashtun people. It is both an ethnicity and nationality. Ethnicity wise, it refers to the Pashtuns. In modern terms, it means both the citizens of Afghanist ...

descent. She was a symbolic figure in the headscarf dispute in Germany from the late 1990s to the early 2000s.

Life

Ludin comes from an upper-middle-class background and is the youngest of five children. Her mother was one of the first women in Afghanistan to go to university in the 1950s. After graduating, she worked as a teacher. Her father was an engineer, worked as a counsellor and later as a minister in the Afghan government. When Fereshta Ludin was four years old, her father became ambassador in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

. After the Invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops in 1979, the family went into exile in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

. Her father worked there as an engineer. The family lived in

Riyadh Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the Riyadh Governorate. Located on the eastern bank of Wadi Hanifa, the current form of the metropolis largely emerged in th ...

. Fereshta Ludin had to wear a headscarf from the fifth year of school there. After her father's death, the family moved to Germany in 1986 and applied for asylum. After graduating from high school, Ludin studied to become a teacher of English, German and social studies. She studied at the Pädagogische Hochschule Schwäbisch Gmünd. She was granted German citizenship in 1995. She completed her traineeship with a grade of 1.3. From 1997 to 1999, she was a member of the board of Muslim Youth in Germany. Ludin has been refused employment in the

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

school service by the authorities and courts since 1998 because she did not want to wear a

headscarf A headscarf is a scarf covering most or all of the top of a person's, usually women's, hair and head, leaving the face uncovered. A headscarf is formed of a triangular cloth or a square cloth folded into a triangle, with which the head is cov ...

in class for religious reasons. Her lawsuit before the

Federal Constitutional Court The Federal Constitutional Court ( ; abbreviated: ) is the supreme constitutional court for the Federal Republic of Germany, established by the constitution or Basic Law () of Germany. Since its inception with the beginning of the post-W ...

was successful in 2003, as there was no legal basis for a headscarf ban in state law. During her legal battle, she frequently appeared on

talk shows A talk show is a television programming, radio programming or podcast genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show', pp.3-4Erler, Robert (20 ...

and there was intensive media coverage. In January 2015, the Federal Constitutional Court once again ruled on the wearing of headscarves by female teachers, this time in the case of a teacher and a social education worker in North Rhine-Westphalia. A blanket ban on headscarves has now been rejected, as it is not compatible with the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. Only if there is a concrete danger to school peace or state neutrality, for example through proselytising, can the wearing of a head covering be banned as a fulfilment of religious duty. After the headscarf ruling, Ludin taught at a state-approved Islamic primary school in Berlin. Ludin was one of the organisers of the first Berlin Ramadan peace march in June 2017.

Publications

* ''Thank you, Mr President!'' In: Hilal Sezgin (ed.): ''Manifesto of the Many: Germany reinvents itself.'' Blumenbar, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-9367-3874-2. * with Sandra Abed: ''Enthüllung der Fereshta Ludin: Die mit dem Kopftuch.'' Deutscher Levante Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3943737-21-9 (autobiography).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ludin, Fereshta 1972 births 20th-century German educators German people of Afghan descent German activists Living people