Turkish Cypriot teachers were in court on Thursday for the latest hearing of their challenge to have the north’s ruling coalition’s decision to legalise the wearing of hijabs at public schools declared unlawful.

Thursday’s proceedings were short, with the court deciding to adjourn the case until May 22.

Outside court, lawyer Oncel Polili explained that the north’s law office had filed a defence “regarding the measures of the case”, instead of objecting to the teachers’ application for an interim order to be placed on the matter of hijabs until a final ruling is reached.

Cyprus Turkish secondary education teachers’ trade union (Ktoeos) leader Selma Eylem, meanwhile, said outside court that “this unconstitutional regulation must be withdrawn”, and added, “this imposition on the bodies of our girls must be stopped”.

The court case comes amid a standoff between Turkish Cypriot teachers and the north’s ruling coalition on the matter, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even having intervened on the matter.

“If you try to mess with our girls’ headscarves in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, I am sorry, you will find us against you,” he had said during a visit to Cyprus earlier this month.

The ruling coalition had initially legalised the wearing of hijabs in schools midway through March, but faced a fierce backlash from teachers, the majority of whom are staunchly secular, before withdrawing the law shortly thereafter.

Turkish Cypriots have in large numbers rejected the hijab law, taking to the streets of Nicosia in their thousands on three separate occasions since the law was enacted, with numerous smaller such protests having taken place in the meantime.

The most recent of those protests came at the end of a general strike across the north.