Turkish court annuls headscarf law
ANKARA —
Turkey’s top court on Thursday annulled a law allowing women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities on grounds it violates secularism, dealing a major blow to the ruling Islamist-rooted party.
The law breached constitutional provisions that describe Turkey’s secular system as an unalterable principle, the 11-member Constitutional Court said in a brief statement.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) pushed through the constitutional amendment on the headscarf in February. That act was the principal argument advanced by Turkey’s chief prosecutor when he asked the Constitutional Court in March to ban the AKP on charges that it is seeking to install an Islamist regime.
Thursday’s ruling was largely seen as a signal the court will go against the AKP when it decides whether to outlaw it and bar 71 party officials, among them Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, from politics. That verdict is expected later this year.
The ruling led to Erdogan to cancel his program in Istanbul and return to Ankara Friday for an emergency meeting of the AKP leadership, a party official said.
“The decision significantly strengthens the prosecutors’ arguments” in the closure case against the AKP, constitutional law professor Ulku Azrak commented.
“It is a historic ruling… It has demonstrated that secularism is Turkey’s state ideology,” veteran politician and jurist Husamettin Cindoruk said.
A senior AKP member slammed the court for overstepping its jurisdiction, limited to examining only whether constitutional amendments are procedurally flawed.
“This is interfering with both democracy and parliament’s legislative authority,” Bekir Bozdag said.
The opposition Republican People’s Party, which had petitioned the court to scrap the amendment, welcomed the ruling, while the Nationalist Action Party, which had backed the law, warned of “deepening polarization in Turkish society along the lines of faith.”
The Turkish military, a staunch defender of the secular system, lent support to the court.
Army chief Yasar Buyukanit urged respect for the ruling, while air forces commander Aydogan Babaoglu said any other decision would have been “abnormal,” CNN Turk television reported.
The AKP, the moderate offshoot of a banned Islamist party, pushed the headscarf amendment through parliament, arguing that the ban—imposed after a 1980 military coup—violates freedom of conscience and the right to education.
But hardline secularists—among them the army, the judiciary and academics—see the headscarf as a symbol of defiance against secularism.
They say that easing the restrictions in universities will increase social pressure on women to cover up and pave the way for the lifting of a similar ban in high schools and government offices.
The Constitutional Court has in the past twice ruled against moves to lift the on-campus ban on the headscarf.
The ban has also been upheld by Turkey’s top administrative court and the European Court of Human Rights.
The AKP rejects charges of being anti-secular but has been under attack from the secularist camp ever since it first came to power in 2002. The party was re-elected for a second term in July with nearly 47% of the vote, drawing mainly on its economic success.
It says it has disowned its Islamist roots and embraced Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, but maintains that rigid interpretations of secularism in Turkey breach religious freedoms.
Opponents argue that moves such as the headscarf amendment and a ban on alcohol sales in restaurants run by AKP municipalities, coupled with rhetoric in favor of broader religious freedoms, indicate a secret Islamist agenda.
Many fear that outlawing the AKP, a coalition of religious conservatives, pro-business liberals and mainstream center-right politicians, would throw Turkey into political chaos as the party still enjoys solid public support in the face of a weak and fractured opposition.
AFP
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Betzee
This is essentially an American argument. But Turkish secularism is based on ideas drawn from the French Enlightment which mandated religion must be kept out of the public sphere. Ironically, Turkey's bid to join the EU helped the Islamists since member countries cannot discriminate along the lines prescribed by Turkish state secularism.
The AKP would be reconstituted under a different name, this is a well established precedent in Turkish politics.
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adaydream
There is going to be some real turmoil in the middle east in the near future. I'm not even talking about the US pulling out of Iraq. That'll be nothing compared to when the different sects and factions start fighting to take control. < :-)
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Zaphod
Of course the AKP has not "disowned its islamist roots". That is pure Taqquiva, and the Turkish secularists know that. Alas, the idiots in the European community do not and continue to help the islamists in Turkey dismantle Kemalism. Stand by for EU to condemn the Turkish courts and demand the laws changed to allow political islam to grow in the name of "religious freedom".
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Betzee
The problem with Kemalism is that Ataturk was acting as an "enlightened dictator" when he set the Republic up after the disbandment of the Ottoman Empire. The military is the keeper of the Kemal legacy which means it has interferred in domestic politics in a way that is unacceptable to the EU.
There's a significant class component to the head scarf issue in Turkey. Nobody cared when female members of the upscale shopping mall custodial staff wore head scarves as they cleaned the bathrooms. It was only when shoppers appeared in headscarves that secularists, and women in particular, became nervous. An observant middle class is now evident in Istanbul.
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usaexpat
Good for Turkey, a success story in the Muslim world because the government remains fiercely secular. Other countries who intermingle religeon and government should take a lesson here.
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usaexpat
Zaphod you are right on the mark. Look what the EU's tolerance has gotten them. For a group of nations with far less religeous observance than the US (at least according to the pope) it seems amazing that they are so willing to allow Muslim immigrants to hijack the Eurpoean system.
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WilliB
usaexpat:
A success story in the muslim world, but hardly a reason for us to sleep easy. Kemal Ataturk put a lid on islam by nationalising it. That way, the jihadists are kept at bay. On the other hand, islam is a national project. IT is the state religion, the ministry of religion builds mosques and pays imams and checks their sermons. And it keeps other religions out -- Christians and Jews are alowed to live, but not to own church/synagogues, to preach openly, or to educate their clergy. And still Christian pastors are routinely shot and threatened. The result is that now Turkey is 99.99% muslim.
If you think that is the way to solve the islamist problem in the West, think again. Do you really want islam as state religion in your country, even if it is a controlled islam of the Kemalist kind?
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Betzee
Turkey allows Iranians to vacation there and they go in droves because it's visa free. It certainly is good for them to see a different example.
The problem is not with the EU, democratization has been an ongoing process in Turkey and the resurgence of interest in Islam dates back to the 1980s. The fundamental problem is that banning religion from the public sphere is incompatible with democracy. Look at all the problems with Christmas celebrations in public places in the USA and how secularists have been castigated on that.
I'm no more happy than anyone else with this trend in Turkey but maintaining the headscarf ban is unlikely to make secularists out of believers.
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WilliB
Betzee:
No. The fundamental problem is that islam itself incompatible with democracy.
And people like you and the Eurocrats, who view islam simply a private religion and ignore islam`s political character are digging the grave of the West.
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Betzee
I agree but that doesn't change the fact that religious expression cannot be suppressed under democracy. Where the West failed was in believing given the choice, Muslims would choose secularism and political pluralism.
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WilliB
Betzee:
The point is that an expression of political islam is not a "religious expression" but a political expression. The headscarf is the flag of political islam. If you allow it, it means islam trumps secular law. It means girls are under pressure to obey Sharia instead of secular law. Please note that secular muslims (secular Turks, secular Tunesians etc. do NOT wear the headscarf). In muslim countries the potency of the symbol is understood --- ironically, we in the West help the islamist fundis by pretenting the scarf is not political. It is.
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Betzee
On a abstract level, the head scarf is no different from a photo of the Dalai Lama banned in China. It's simply an expression of faith.
The issue in Turkey for secularists, particularly women, was that allowing females to wear head scarves on campus would inevitably lead to demands from those whose degrees garnered them jobs in public ministries that they had the right to wear a headscarf to work. At some point women who didn't wear head scarves would be pressured to do so. By contrast it's unlikely a Tibetan Buddhist would insist a Han Chinese accept his faith.
If you heard Mitt Romney declare last winter "Freedom requires religion," well obviously he didn't think through the implications of his remarks. It doesn't. Interestingly, France does not allow pupils or teachers to wear religious clothing in public secondary schools.
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