World Bulletin / News Desk

An 18-year-old Muslim student in Germany’s Bavaria has been banned from wearing her face veil in class at her state run vocational college after a court ruled against her argument that it was her constitutional right.

The Bavarian administrative court ruled that her school had done nothing illegal in asking her to remove the veil in a hearing on April 22, stating that the veil acted as a barrier for non-verbal communication.

“Open communication during teaching is based not only on the spoken word, but also on non-verbal elements such as facial expressions, gestures and other body language,” the court said.

An estimate made in 2009 calculated that there are 4.3 million Muslims in Germany (5.4% of the population).

Of these, 1.9 million are German citizens (2.4%). As of 2006, about 15,000 converts are of German ancestry.

Although Germany has no restrictions on the wearing of the headscarf and face-veil unlike neighbor France, the ruling could be viewed as an indication that restrictions may gradually become introduced in the wider European region.