Turkish parliament moves to lift ban on head scarves

Turkey’s parliament today approved the first of two constitutional amendments that would lift a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarves in universities despite the fierce opposition of the secular establishment.

Parliament voted 403-107 in favour of the amendment that would insert a paragraph into the Constitution stating that everyone has the right to equal treatment from state institutions, Parliament Speaker Koksal Toptan said.

Parliament planned to vote on the second and final amendment, which says “no one can be deprived of (his or her) right to higher education,” later today.

In predominantly Muslim Turkey, which seeks European Union membership, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party has channelled the frustration of devout masses, who feel excluded from the establishment, into political action.

“We will end the sufferings of our girls at university gates,” Erdogan said on Thursday in reference to pious female students who have been forced to remove their head scarves at the entrance to campuses. Some have attended classes wearing wigs.

The Parliament will also hold a final vote later today on the overall package. The ruling party and a conservative nationalist party that supports the changes have the required two-thirds majority.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party does not have enough seats to stop the measure but said it would appeal to the Constitutional Court to try to cancel it.

In a second protest within a week, tens of thousands of flag-waving secular Turks held a demonstration against the measure in Ankara today, calling for the resignation of the government.

“This is a Black Revolution! The head scarf is a political symbol,” said Canan Aritman, an MP from the Republican People’s Party. “We will never allow our country to be dragged back into the dark ages.”

Kamer Genc, an independent MP, said the approval of the law would amount to “the death of the secular republic”.

“This law will create chaos in universities and will lead to the disintegration of the nation,” Genc said.

Many analysts have cautioned that the government’s move threatens to spark tensions with the secular establishment as prominent judicial authorities – who disbanded an Islamic party in 1998 – vowed to defend the secular regime.

Islam and secularism are long-standing rivals in modern Turkey, founded by the revered Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. Ataturk sought to eliminate religion’s place in a society with a 99% Muslim population by banning religious garb and changing the alphabet from the Arabic of the Koran to the Latin. Secularism became a deeply ingrained ideology.

The military leads the forces committed to preserving the staunchly secular principles of modern Turkey and has stepped into politics before. However, Erdogan, who won 47 percent of the votes in general elections last year, has strong public backing and insists that his party is loyal to the secular traditions.

Many secular women fear that allowing head scarves in universities will lead eventually to their being pressured to cover their bodies as well.