Turkey: Hijab Ban Lifted

ISTANBUL: Turkey's Parliament took a major step on Saturday toward lifting a ban against women's head scarves at universities, setting the stage for a final showdown with the country's secular elite over where Islam fits in the building of an open society.

Turkish lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a measure supported by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to change Turkey's Constitution in a way they say would guarantee all citizens the right to go to college regardless of how they dress.

Turkish authorities imposed the ban in the late 1990s, arguing that the growing number of covered women in colleges threatened secularism, one of the founding principles of modern Turkey.

Secular opposition lawmakers voted against the change, with about a fifth of all ballots cast. Crowds of secular Turks backed them on the streets of Turkey's capital, Ankara, chanting that secularism — and women's right to resist being forced to wear head scarves by an increasingly conservative society — was under threat and demanding that the government step down.

"This decision will bring further pressure on women," said Nesrin Baytok, a member of Parliament from the opposition secular party, during the debate in Parliament. "It will ultimately bring us Hezbollah terror, Al Qaeda terror and fundamentalism."

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Turks protest over headscarf plan

By Sarah Rainsford

BBC News, Istanbul


The issue is highly controversial in a mainly Muslim country. Thousands of Turks have rallied in Ankara to protest against a government plan to allow women to wear the Islamic headscarf in Turkish universities.

The protestors fear such a move would usher in a stricter form of Islam in Turkey, which is a secular state.

Turkey's parliament is expected to approve a constitutional amendment to ease the ban next week.

The ban on the headscarf in higher education was imposed in the 1980s, and has been enforced for the past decade.

A huge crowd gathered at the mausoleum of Ataturk - the man who founded Turkey as a modern, secular republic.

Fearing the gains of his revolution are in danger, the protestors came waving Ataturk's image on banners and carrying the national flag.

Political symbol

The government - which is led by devout Muslims - is pushing a reform that would allow women to wear the religious headscarf to university.

The scarf has been banned outright in private and state universities for almost two decades.

The government argues the ban deprives thousands of women of a higher education.

But Turkey's powerful, secular establishment sees the headscarf as a symbol of political Islam - a threat to their secular way of life, and to the political system here.

Those opposed to the reform include the military, Turkey's judges and university rectors.

They fear it is just the first step to allowing religious symbols into all aspects of public life.

The constitutional amendment is likely to be passed by parliament, where the government has the support of the main nationalist party.

But such is the controversy that the changes are almost certain to be contested in the constitutional court.