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Turkish Court Annuls Headscarf Bill |
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Friday, 06 June 2008 |
A law allowing women to wear the headscarf at university was overturned by
Turkey’s constitutional court yesterday, a decision that threatens the ruling
party with closure for allegedly promoting Islam.
The powerful 11-member court, the stronghold of secularists, voted 9-2 to
reverse changes made this year relaxing restrictions on the wearing of the
headscarf.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister – whose headscarf-wearing daughters
study in the US, where no such restriction exists – had maintained that
prohibiting the scarf in higher education was an infringement of women’s rights.
But the court said that the changes required to allow the scarf to be worn
infringed the secularist principles of the constitution.
In February Turkish MPs voted to amend the constitution to lift curbs on the
headscarf in universities by 411 votes to 103. President Abdullah Gül, who
helped to found the ruling AK party, approved this two weeks later. Yesterday’s
decision has been heralded as a precursor to another case being heard in the
same court regarding Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK). The
headscarf vote in parliament is a mainstay of the case against AK, which a top
prosecutor wants banned for pursuing an alleged Islamist agenda since it came to
office in 2002. He also wants to exclude 71 party members, including Mr Erdogan,
from politics for five years. A ruling is expected soon.
The Constitutional Court verdict issued Thursday says amendments that were
passed by Parliament in February ran counter to constitutional provisions which
say Turkey is a secular republic and that this principle is unalterable, a court
statement said.
Secularists claim the move would undermine the secular state.
The headscarf reform plays a central role in a separate court case that seeks to
shut down the AK Party for anti-secular activities, and ban 71 members,
including the prime minister and the president, from belonging to a political
party for five years.
Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek was reported by broadcaster CNN Turk as saying
he would comment on the matter once he had read the court's ruling.
"We must see the justification for the decision," Cicek, who is also government
spokesman, was reported as saying.
Lifting the headscarf ban was one of the most significant moves on religious
issues in predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey since a military coup in 1980
that led to a crackdown on individual rights.
Source: Press TV & Independent
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