Russia’s Muslim-majority region of Dagestan introduced Wednesday a temporary ban on women from wearing the niqab, or full-face veil, in response to last week’s terrorist attacks.
In a statement on the Telegram messenger app, Dagestan’s Islamic authority or muftiate said it was introducing a “temporary” ban on the niqab after an appeal from Russia’s Nationality Policy and Religious Affairs Ministry.
Reports following the attacks on June 23 said one of the gunmen had planned to escape wearing a niqab.
The muftiate, a religious organization representing Dagestani Muslims, said the ban would remain in place “until the identified threats are eliminated and a new theological conclusion is reached.”
The niqab, a style of veil that covers most of the face and body has seen some popularity in Dagestan since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Though only a small minority of Dagestani women wear full-face veils, niqabs have been a common sight in the region’s larger cities.
Similar veils are banned by law in several European and post-Soviet countries.
At least 22 people were killed in simultaneous attacks on Orthodox churches, synagogues, and police checkpoints across Dagestan on June 23.
Security forces said they killed five attackers in gun battles that left a synagogue in the city of Derbent gutted by flames.
Dagestan was in the 2000s and 2010s plagued by a terrorist insurgency that spilled over from neighboring Chechnya, though security in the region had improved in recent years.
Earlier this March, 145 people were killed in an attack on a Moscow concert hall that was claimed by the Daesh terrorist group’s Central Asian affiliate.
Russian authorities detained several Tajikistani nationals it said had staged the gun and bomb attack.
