This post is republished with permission fromRemix News
A dormitory dispute at a vocational school in St. Pölten has landed a 17-year-old student from Lower Austria’s Mostviertel region with a week-long suspension — and the decision has drawn sharp criticism from politicians.
The trouble began with a matter of religious observance. Two Muslim girls sharing a four-person room at the St. Pölten State Vocational School’s boarding house were waking before dawn each morning during Ramadan to eat before sunrise, setting their alarm for 3 a.m.
Their two non-Muslim roommates found their sleep routinely broken as a result. One mother said the disruption went beyond just the early alarm.
Upon waking up at 3:00 a.m., the mother said that “they even turn up the music.”
Attempts to resolve the situation through a room reassignment came to nothing after the Muslim students declined to move.
Tensions eventually boiled over when the 17-year-old rang her mother late one night to vent.
“My daughter called me next time in a rage and let her frustration run wild,” her mother told the Kronen Zeitung.
The call took place in the corridor, where the roommates heard parts of it through the door. The Directorate of Education says the confrontation went further still, with the teenager allegedly going on to insult her roommates face to face — an exchange said to have been caught on video. The two girls subsequently reported her to school management.
The school quickly took the side of the two Muslim students, issuing the girl a one-week suspension from the boarding house.
Source: modernity
