BAKU -- Dozens of female students in the secular Muslim state of Azerbaijan say they could be forced to give up their studies after university chiefs barred them from wearing headscarves, an attribute of their Islamic faith, on campus.

The Azeri government has often accused of trampling on religious freedoms in the mainly Shiite Muslim country, AFP reported.

"I am being forced to choose between my education and my religious beliefs," said Nurana Zeinalova, a student at the Pedagogical Institute in the Azeri capital, Baku, who said she was given an ultimatum to take off her headscarf.

Female students at three schools in Baku, the Medical Institute, the Pedagogical Institute and Baku State University, claim that in the past month their lecturers have ordered them to remove the scarves.

"We were having roll-call and when they got to my name they said I could not stay in class in a headscarf," said another student, Saida Samubar.

"I asked what law says I cannot wear a headscarf and (the teacher) said it was in the regulations of our institute. After that they asked me to leave the class," she said.

Other students said they were called in for private interviews with university rectors where they were asked to explain why they wore the headscarf and advised to take it off in class.

"They say it is not a demand but a request but the request is in a very strong form," said Gyulzar Shadlinskaya, a Muslim activist and teacher at the Pedagogical Institute.

Under some interpretations of the Qoran, Islam's holy book, women should not be seen in public with their heads exposed.

The students' case has been picked up by the Religious Freedom Defense Centre, a local non-governmental organization. They have threatened to take the issue to court and to the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.

Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, the centre's coordinator, warned that by suppressing religious freedom, the authorities are providing fertile ground for the kind of islamic fundamentalism that they are trying to avoid.

"This is a violation of religious freedoms and a violation of the right of citizens to dress the way they want," said Ibrahimoglu.

"They say they can do this because Azerbaijan is a secular state but some people seem to want to be more secular than Britain, France or Germany." However, Azerbaijan's Education Ministry defended the ban on headscarves in university classrooms.

"Under no circumstances should this question be linked to religion or to a violation of human rights," said Bayram Gusseinzade, head of the ministry's department of public affairs.

"It is just a desire on the part of university chiefs to see their students dressed in a way that is appropriate for institutes of higher education." He added: "In the same way a lecturer can ask a scruffy, unshaven male student to come to lectures clean-shaven. Lots of companies also set rules on appearance for their staff, for example not to wear mini-skirts." "No one is forcing female students to walk around on the streets, at home or wherever with an uncovered head... we are only talking about an institute, which has its own rules." The eight million population in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet state, are predominantly Shiite Muslims.

The government is frequently accused of violating religious freedoms in its desire to shore up the country's secular principles.

Muslim activists are pursuing the authorities through the courts over their refusal to issue passports and identity cards to women who are photographed for the documents with their head covered.

A lot of the problems mirror those in Turkey, Azerbaijan's neighbor and a model for many of its state institutions, where secularism and religious freedoms also frequently come into conflict.