Hijab ban protects women’s rights and Turkey’s secular constitution

Farzana Hassan, Freelance

Published: Monday, November 03

Secular Muslims are welcoming the decision of the Constitutional Court of Turkey to disallow the lifting of the ban on hijabs as a significant triumph for secularism over repressive Islamist practices. The court recently ruled that amendments to the constitution by the ruling AKP to permit hijabs in universities, would amount to rendering “nonfunctional the basic features of the republic.”

At the core of this decision is the realization that the hijab continues to be a tool of oppression for Muslim women, severely restricting their right to express their faith in their own unique and personal way.

Faith and its expression must be a matter of personal choice rather than a “categorical imperative” handed down through a system of belief that might be deemed by some as  repressive and outmoded in its various manifestation.

While the decision of the Constitutional Court of Turkey might restrict the rights of women claiming to have adopted the hijab of their own free will, one must question the authenticity of such claims through a process of unearthing some of the religious undercurrents of such decisions. In the same suspicion over the validity of such claims, European lawmakers have chosen to restrict the use of religious headgear in public institutions.

One would need assurances for example, that women who reject the hijab would not be subjected to coercion in the matter, simply because the orthodoxy considers it a religious requirement. The lifting of the ban in Turkey would have empowered the fundamentalist Islamic forces, resulting in the almost certain marginalization and oppression of women, reducing their role in society to one of subservience and subjugation. This would be tantamount to providing leverage to the religious right in their ceaseless attempts to enforce compliance for the practice where it is not voluntary.

Traditional Muslims often bristle at such criticism by downplaying the social pressures faced by women who reject the hijab. This, however, is a gross  misrepresentation of reality. Even women who supposedly choose it, do so because they are rarely if ever exposed to an alternative analysis on the issue, which does not consider the hijab a religious requirement.

Women’s “choice” in the matter can be considered authentic only if they are exposed to alternative narratives on modesty, which do not prescribe the covering of the hair or face.

Turkey as a modern state and last bastion of secular Islam, must continue to uphold its tradition of the separation of religion and state. The headgear or hijab is a political tool and a threat to Turkey’s long secular tradition. Currently, there is tremendous pressure on secular women to cover up according to orthodox requirements, even in large cities. The present government has also attempted to eliminate the secular dress code in government offices. It has taken a slower, steadier path, careful not to jolt the establishment too quickly while at the same time floating an occasional trial balloon for social reforms to advance the Islamist agenda.

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Asia Sentiel

great Turkish headscarf war

Turkey’s increasingly Islamic Government wants to relax a ban on the Muslim headscarf as traditional secularists fight to maintain it – and Turkish women are caught in the crossfire

Zeynep tugs the knitted cotton hat down over her headscarf. “Secular!” she says. Then she pulls off the hat, leaving just the orange fabric around her pale, earnest face. “Now, not secular!” I’m relieved that she is laughing, sees the funny side of having to look like a Smurf to complete her MA in history. The headscarf war in Turkey is so grave and bitterly entrenched that it has brought angry millions onto the streets. It is why the country’s constitutional court this month decides whether the democratically elected AKP Government should be removed from office. A square of coloured silk may yet cause a military coup.

Even so, the code that dictates what Turkish women may or may not stick on their heads when they study at universities or take government jobs has a comic absurdity. In the wig shops that have sprung up across Istanbul, the Christina Aguilera-ish blonde dos are worn by the clubbers and transvestites who party in bars around polyglot Taksim Square, but the bestselling model is a mouse-brown, fringed bob of synthetic hair, bought in the thousands every September by devout Muslim girls, to be pulled from bags and on to heads to replace the scarves that must be removed before they can pass through college doors. Turkey, always a gateway between Europe and Asia, is the nexus of our most fervent global dialogues: East v West, secularism v religion, state v the individual. Turkey poses the question: can an Islamic nation be truly democratic? And how the West longs for an affirmative answer. In the middle, strafed by ideological crossfire, dragged between camps and paraded by each in triumph like Helen of Troy, is the Turkish woman. Who has control over her body? The imams, the State or the woman?

It is best to be honest and say that, as a Western, secular feminist, I abhor the headscarf. In London, I feel anger and dismay at eight-year-old British Muslim girls in hijab. If this is an act of sexual propriety, why is it now so often extended to prepubescent children, other than to render women hamstrung and invisible, almost from birth? Loose clothing, the covering of legs and arms, I can better understand. The invocation to Western women to look perpetually “hot” and up-for-it is depressing, too.

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University hijab ban upheld

Jun 06, 2008 04:30 AM

Suzan Fraser

Associated Press

ANKARA–Turkey’s top court has ruled that Islamic headscarves violate secularism and cannot be allowed at universities, deepening a divide between the country’s Islamic-oriented government and secular institutions.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government had tried to allow hijabs at universities as a matter of personal and religious freedom.

But yesterday’s Constitutional Court verdict said constitutional amendments that were passed by parliament in February went against secularism.

The headscarf issue is an explosive one in Turkey, where the government is locked in a power struggle with secular groups that have support from the military and other state institutions.

The verdict is likely to bode ill for the government. Turkey’s chief prosecutor is seeking to disband the ruling party on grounds that it is “the focal point of anti-secular activities” in a separate case at the Constitutional Court.

The prosecutor – who has also asked that Erdogan and other party officials be banned from politics for five years – has cited attempts to allow headscarves at universities as a case in point.

Many see the hijab as an emblem of political Islam, and consider any attempt to allow it in schools as an attack against modern Turkey’s secular laws.

There was no immediate comment from the government. Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek said the government wanted to see the court’s reasoning behind the decision before commenting.

But Bekir Bozdag, a senior legislator of the ruling party, said “the Constitutional Court has overstepped its power and interfered in democracy.”

“However, this verdict is binding and will be obeyed,” he added.

Devlet Bahceli, the leader of a nationalist party that backed the amendments, predicted the decision would accelerate “the divide over religion.”

The court’s 11 judges voted 9-2 to annul the amendments, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported. At least seven votes would be required to disband the party.

A brief statement from the court said the amendments were annulled because they were in violation of some articles of the constitution, including one that states “the Turkish Republic is a secular state” and another declaring that altering the secular nature of the republic “cannot even be proposed.”

Onur Oymen, a senior legislator of the opposition Republican People Party, said the verdict spelled the end to such amendments.

“From now on, no one will be able to attempt to change the Constitution,” Oymen told NTV television.

“This decision reminds the ruling party what it can or cannot do despite winning 47 per cent of the votes,” Husamettin Cindoruk, former parliament speaker, told NTV television.

“This decision has set the boundaries and reshaped the state.”

In February, parliament passed constitutional amendments to allow headscarves to be worn at universities – but not in schools or state offices. The secular opposition immediately appealed the ruling to the top court.

Turkey’s 70 million people are predominantly Muslim.

But secularists feared that lifting the ban at universities would erode Turkey’s secular nature and create pressure on all female students to cover themselves.

Pious female students have been forced to remove their hijabs at the entrance to campuses. Some have attended classes wearing wigs.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded modern Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, banned religious attire in daily life.

The ban has been vigorously enforced in public office and schools after a 1980 military coup

Toronto star

If Muslim men like the veil so much, let them wear it

If Muslim men are so keen on seeing their headscarf introduced into Irish society, they should wear it as well as their women. Let them cover up, too.

Otherwise there must be no place for the hijab in civic life here. Not in banks, hospitals or libraries, not in the guards or civil service and most definitely not in schools.

You hear a constant stream of hooey about why we can’t ban the headscarf. But this is not about Islamophobia. It’s not about prejudice on race or religion grounds. It’s not about equating the Muslim scarf with terrorism. It’s not about denial of civil rights.

Here’s what banning the headscarf is about: the State demonstrating our belief in gender equality. It’s about removing a symbol of repression and submission. Showing we don’t condone marks of separation — either between men and women, Muslim and Christian, or native born and immigrant.

And it’s about refusing point blank to make allowances for anything which could lead to a creeping erosion of women’s rights.

Today the hijab which covers the hair and shoulders, tomorrow the niqab or full-face veil, the day after the burqa hiding everything from tip to toe — described as a mobile prison by women obliged to wear it.

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Hijab Battles Around the World

Tayyibah, St. Paul Minnesota. Fatima, Creil, France. Samira, Algiers, Algeria. What do these women have in common? They are all Muslim, and they’ve all had a run-in with the law.

Their crimes, you ask? Wearing Hijab, or the Islamic head scarf. Worldwide there seems to be a growing consensus that a few yards of cloth on a woman’s head, especially if it covers part or all of her face, is a threat to education, women’s rights, public security and even to freedom of religion itself.

MUSLIM COUNTRIES NOT IMMUNE TO THE TREND
Amazingly, countries whose populations are predominantly Muslim are not immune to this trend. Indeed, it seems they have led the charge.
For many years, Turkey, followed more recently by Algeria and Tunisia, has had a prohibition on wearing Hijab.
Egypt, up until a few weeks ago, also forbade women students to wear scarves. Morocco forbade its citizens living in France to join protests against Hijab strictures there.
Women who defy the bans may be arrested, denied jobs and education, fined or even thrown in prison. More recently, moves against the Hijab have been made in European and American countries.
THE CASE OF HIJAB DISCRIMINATION IN FRANCE
This September in France, the national minister of education issued a directive that effectively banned head scarves from the classroom. On October 3, police were called in to prevent 22 Muslim girls from entering their school wearing the Hijab.
Since then polls have shown that 86 percent of the French populace supports the education minister’s decree.
The general perception is that Hijab is a threat to secularism and the separation of religion and state. In particular, there was concern that Hijab is responsible for dividing Muslim and non-Muslim students.
Some even claim that it is an Islamist plot to “demolish the secular public system” (Le Point Magazine).
Others worry that head scarves introduce religious influences into the public school and places undue strain on other students to conform to Islam’s dress or moral code.
HIJAB: A VIOLATION OF A WOMAN’S RIGHTS?
Another claim is that Hijab constitutes a violation of the female’s human rights because it is a form of discrimination.
Yet, it is common in France for students to wear crosses or yarmulkes (the Jewish skullcap) and for Jewish students to be exempted from Saturday classes. Defending his discriminatory decision, [French education minister Francois] Bayrou declared, “My instructions to school heads will be very clear. We will continue to accept discrete religious signs, as has always been the case. But we cannot accept ostentatious signs that divide our youth.”
BENAZIR BHUTTO ON THE HIJAB
Visiting Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto added insult to injury, when addressing the French Diplomatic Press Association on November 3.
[She]said that Muslim girls who want to wear head scarves perhaps “want to make an identity of their own and to observe what they consider to be their traditions,” and declared “luckily my father did not ask me to wear a veil, otherwise I might not be here before you today.”
HIJAB DISCRIMINATION IN AUSTRALIA
Sociology professor Gary Bouma, of Melbourne’s Monash University, who authored [the] Australian Bureau of Immigration and Population Research’s report, says wearing the Hijab “clearly sets a woman aside as different and as a serious Muslim,” adding “that wearing the Hijab made it difficult for them to get jobs.”
The report, which said that many of Australia’s 150,000 Muslims have experienced harassment and bigotry, was released by Immigration Minister Nick Bolkus on November 4, just days after his government announced new laws carrying jail sentences for inciting racial hatred.

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Hijab is a personal choice not state law in Turkey

The hijab, the head cover Muslim women wear in keeping with their religious traditions, has become in modern times a politically charged issue in several Muslim countries, and more recently in Europe.

In the early eighties, Iran imposed the hijab on its female citizens, while Syria banned it from schools during the same period. Syria gradually came to terms with the hijab, as the number of Syrian women who chose to wear it increased drastically during the nineties.

The hijab is enforced today in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and banned in Tunisia and Turkey. France banned the hijab in 2004, and far right politicians and pundits are calling for similar bans in other European countries, and have already succeeded in doing so in the Belgian city of Antwerp.

The Turkish parliament passed last week a constitutional amendment that practically repealed early constitutional provisions that allowed the Turkish government to ban, in the late ’90s, the hijab from government buildings, universities, and schools. Although the lifting of the ban is not in force yet, the confrontation over this issue with secularists who control the military and the courts has already started. Secularist Turks are up in arms, protesting the new amendment, and preparing to challenge it in court.

The debate over the hijab is emotionally charged, with secular Turks presenting the move as the first step toward ending democracy in Turkey and forcing all Turkish women to wear headscarves. This alarmist language has clouded the debate and created a sense of panic, as the choices presented are based on the logic of either/or, as if the only choices society can make is that between banning or enforcing the hijab. These are of course false choices, as society can choose neither to ban nor enforce. The third choice is the one available to women in most Muslim countries. In most societies, the decision to wear a headscarf, or to take it off, is a personal choice.

Yet, the real problem is not in the decision a woman makes, but in the politicization of that decision. The problem lies in the moral inconsistency and the use of double standards in addressing an issue concerning individual choice and freedom of expression. The only morally defensible position is denying the state the right to either force or prohibit people to follow practices they genuinely believe to be required by their religious traditions, particularly when these practices do not violate the rights of others.

The argument to ban the hijab often rests on a paternalistic attitude derived from the dominant position enjoyed by the group to which the person who advocate the hijab ban belongs. For decades now, anti-hijab writers refused to consider it as a personal choice and an individual right, protected under international humanitarian law. Reza Afshari, for instance, insists that wearing a hijab must not be seen as a self-expression of Muslim women, but rather as a symptom of a male-dominated culture. He, further, argues that Muslim women have internalized the “male-dominated culture.” He even claims that, in addition to being sub-consciously misguided, Muslim women have another reason for wearing a hijab, namely to avoid “those sanctioned practices that permit harassment of women in public, forcing them to comply with repressive norms and rewarding them by according them a marked difference in the ways men treat women in public.”

The argument is both flawed and sexist. It is flawed because it can be equally used to undermine the right of women who chose not to wear a hijab by those who could argue that the latter style of dressing is not a personal choice, but is rather influenced by the dominant culture. The argument is, more importantly, sexist as it assumes that women cannot have a mind of their own, and are always vulnerable to manipulation by male members of their society.

Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that the above assertion is correct, then the remedy cannot be a decision to ban the hijah and deny women the right to personal choices, in violation of equal protection of the law. The remedy must rely on persuasion, education, and enactment of laws that would empower women to act on their on volition, instead of being forced by the state to wear the headscarf of take it off.

A similar argument was recently made by Cheryl Benard in a report that was published by the RAND Corporation in 2004. Benard refused to see the Muslim headscarf as a religious practice, and chose instead to castigate it as a provocative political statement and a challenge to Western democracy. Benard insisted that the hijab is worn by women who belong to one of several problematic categories. “In the United States,” she claimed, “hijab is typically worn by the following groups: recent immigrants from rural, traditional parts of the Muslim world; fundamentalists; unassimilated traditionalists belonging to the strongly observant minority; the elderly;” and, the author states that when it is worn by “young women,” these women “want to get attention and make a provocative statement in their schools, colleges, or workplaces.”

What is provocative is not that Muslim women are choosing to wear a hijab, but that there are still individuals that lay claim to intellectualism who, in keeping with orientalist strategies, continue to deal with the followers of the Islamic faith as silent objects of research who must always be defined by their detractors, but never allowed to define themselves in their own voices. This sad state of affairs was highlighted in an article by Manal Omar that was published in the Guardian in April 2007 under the title “I felt more welcome in the Bible belt.”

Manal narrates in the article her ordeal during a short stay in Oxford, England, when she was challenged by an angry man who did not approve of her wearing a swimsuit that covered her body. Not only did the man speak with her in a condescending tone, but the newspaper that reported the event with sensational and negative spin refused to interview her, and relied solely on the account of her accuser.

She eloquently described her painful experience as she was rendered an object of ridicule, and her story was utilized as a springboard for attacks on multiculturalism and immigrant Muslims in an online discussion forum. “Looking back,” she wrote, “what disturbed me the most about the debate was that my very identity was reduced to a cluster of cliches about Muslim women. I was painted in broad strokes as an oppressed, unstable Muslim woman. I was made invisible, an object of ridicule and debate, with no opinion or independent thoughts. The fact that I had dedicated the past 10 years to working on women’s issues on a global level, led a delegation of American women into Afghanistan in 2003, and put my life on the line in Iraq struggling for women’s constitutional rights were clearly beyond anyone’s imagination.”

Politicians and pundits who question the right of Muslim women to practice their faith do not only ignore the leadership role they play, but also fail to recognize their capacity to be inspired by their faith. The claim that the hijab is worn today by oppressed women is seriously flawed, and is remnant of 19th century orientalism. Many women who chose the hijab today are highly educated and actively involved in public life. They include lawyers, journalists, politicians, directors of non-profit organizations, human rights advocates, professors, and leaders of religious groups and grassroots organizations.

It is about time that Muslim women’s personal choices are respected and their voices are heard.

Dr. Louay Safi serves as the executive director of ISNA Leadership Development Center, an Indiana based organization dedicated to enhancing leadership qualities and skills. He writes and lectures on issues relating to Islam and the West,, democracy, human rights, leadership, and world peace.

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Erdogan should be hung for lifting hijab ban

Erdogan should be hung for lifting hijab ban, Turkish opposition says

Turkey’s parliament lifted a ban last Saturday on female students wearing the Muslim headscarf (hijab) at university, a landmark decision that some Turks fear will undermine the foundations of their secular state.

An estimated 10,000 people, including various civil society organizations, joined in a march and protest in Izmir against proposed changes to the Turkish Constitution backed by the ruling AKP and the opposition MHP which would lift current bans against the headscarf in Turkish universities.

The protest was organized in Izmir’s Karsikaya district by the Patriotic Citizens Platform, and was titled “The Secular Republic March Against the Hijab.” The large masses taking part in the protest met up first in front of the gravesite of Ataturk’s mother, Zubeyde Hanim, and marched from there to the Karsikaya main boulevard, Hurriyet reports.

The headscarf ban in universities dates back to the 1980s but was significantly tightened in 1997 when army generals, with public support, ousted a government they deemed too Islamist.

Deniz Baykal, the leader of a Turkish left-wing party, said Erdogan “should be hung for violating the Constitution.”

It’s worth noting that Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was accused of violating the Constitution and hung by the military in 1961.

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Islam Online

lift ban on Islamic head scarves at only universities

Turkish lawmakers lift ban on Islamic head scarves at universities
2008-02-10

ANKARA, (AP) – Parliament has voted to amend the constitution to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarves at Turkey’s universities, despite fierce opposition from the secular establishment.
Tens of thousands of Turks demonstrated in the capital, Ankara, against the amendments and called for the government’s resignation. «Turkey is secular and will

remain secular,» they chanted, many waving flags.
In a final vote, lawmakers voted 411-103 on Saturday to approve two constitutional amendments that will add paragraphs saying everyone has the right to equal treatment from state institutions and «no one can be deprived of (his or her) right to higher education.
The changes must be signed by President Abdullah Gul, an observant Muslim who is widely expected to approve the amendments.
One lawmaker said lifting the ban amounted to «the death of the secular republic.
The constitutional changes «will create chaos in universities and will lead to the disintegration of the nation,» said Kamer Genc, an independent.
Head scarves have long been prohibited at universities in predominantly Muslim but fiercely secular Turkey, a country seeking to join the European Union.
But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the ban a trial for young Muslim women who are forced to remove their traditional head scarves at campus entrances. Some resort to wearing wigs to class to cover their heads.
«We will end the suffering of our girls at university gates,» Erdogan, whose Justice and Development Party has ties to Islam, had said Thursday.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party said it would appeal to the Constitutional Court.
«This is a Black Revolution. The head scarf is a political symbol,» said lawmaker Canan Aritman. «We will never allow our country to be dragged back into the dark ages.
Nesrin Baytok, another Republican legislator, said approval of the law «would turn Turkey into Afghanistan» in a domino effect.
«You are not opening the door of freedom _ you are shutting it forever for the girls,» Baytok said. «The heads of many girls are shaved by their brothers to force them to wear head scarves.
A week ago, some 125,000 Turks protested against lifting the ban on head scarves.
Analysts cautioned that the move threatens to spark tensions with the secular establishment.
«We are really entering an environment of conflict no matter what the decision of the Constitutional Court would be,» Prof. Yilmaz Eser of the Istanbul-based Bahcesehir University told CNN-Turk television.
Islam and secularism have vied for dominance in the country since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded modern Turkey in 1923.
Ataturk sought to eliminate religion’s place in a society with a 99-percent Muslim population by banning religious garb and changing the alphabet from the Arabic of the Quran to Latin. Secularism became a deeply ingrained ideology, with the military and judiciary as its key protectors.
Erdogan, who has strong public backing, insists his party is loyal to Turkey’s secular traditions. His government says the measure is aimed at expanding democracy and freedoms as part of Turkey’s EU membership bid.

But secularists harbor deep suspicions about the real intentions of Erdogan, who tried to criminalize adultery before being forced by the EU to step back.
Many secular women fear that allowing head scarves in universities will lead eventually to their being pressured to cover their bodies as well.
«The public will come under an intense pressure,» legislator Baytok said. «This is an exploitation of religion. This law does not bring a solution; it leads the way to bigger problems.
Erdogan is head of modern Turkey’s first Islamic-led government, and Gul’s wife, who was prevented from enrolling in university because of her head scarf, now hosts foreign dignitaries at the presidential palace.
The government says once the constitutional amendments are enacted, it plans to change laws governing higher education to specify what type of head covering will be allowed to ensure that students do not attend classes in full-length chadors or burqas.
Erdogan’s party and the Nationalist Action Party agreed that scarves should be tied loosely with a knot beneath the chin, keeping the face exposed.
That attire, accepted in military barracks and guesthouses and not necessarily associated with Islam, is seen as a move to undercut the military’s opposition to lifting the ban.
In Turkey, most pious women prefer a style called the «turban» _ or «hijab» in Arabic _ with scarves tightly wrapped around the neck over a type of bonnet covering the hair.

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Iran hails Turkey’s Hijab law

Turks move to ease headscarf ban

Turkey’s parliament has approved a constitutional amendment that would ease the ban on women wearing Islamic headscarves in universities. The ban has been strictly enforced on campus since 1997 when the staunchly secularist military ousted a government seen as too Islamist.

Wednesday’s vote was carried by 401 in favour to 110 against. Final approval is expected in a vote on Saturday.

The Islamist-rooted AK Party has a safe majority in the Turkish parliament.

Court threat

As Turkey’s population is predominantly Muslim, two-thirds of all Turkish women cover their heads, meaning thousands miss out on the opportunity to attend college. Many Turks argue that is unfair.

The government wants to allow traditional scarves tied under the chin, although more enveloping versions would still be banned.

In Wednesday’s heated debate, Bekir Bozdag, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said the amendment bill would strengthen Turkey’s characteristic principle of secularism.

“Giving an equal right to education to every citizen is not against the state of law and democracy,” he said.

Some women refuse to go to university because of the ban

“Isn’t secularism the guarantee for everyone who wants to benefit from the equal right to education?”

But Hakki Suha Okay, a member of the strictly secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the package “aims to render the principle of secularism ineffective”.

“This step will encourage radical [Islamic] circles in Turkey, accelerate movement towards a state founded on religion, lead to further demands” against the spirit of the republic, he said.

The government’s plan to change the law has sparked large protest rallies by secular Turks, who want to defend the legacy of the modern state’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

They fear it may be a first step to eroding the secular system.

With the backing of a nationalist opposition party, the government has enough votes to change the constitution and relax the ban.

But if it does, the CHP has vowed to challenge the amendment in the constitutional court.

The problem, says the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul, is that the leaders of the current government once espoused political Islam and Turkey’s powerful secular establishment does not trust them.

They fear that lifting the headscarf ban is just the first of many steps to bring Islam into public life, slowly changing the face of modern Turkey and putting pressure on those who do not cover up to do so, our correspondent says.

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protests against hijab

 Secular Turkey protests against hijab

Thousands of secularist Turks took to the streets on Saturday, February 2, against government plans to lift a decades-long ban on hijab on campus, warning the lift could undermine Turkey’s secularism.

“Turkey is secular and will remain secular,” shouted protesters as they waved Turkish flags and banners of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the emblematic leader who threw religion out of public life as he rebuilt Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

“We are concerned that universities will plunge into a chaotic environment and opposing groups will start clashing with each other,” Professor Mustafa Akaydin, the chairman of the oversight board at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University, said in a statement. Reuters reported.

The ruling Justice and Development Party and the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) opposition party have agreed a constitutional amendment to allow a compromise headscarf on campus. Under the deal between the two parties, women and girls at universities are permitted to cover their heads by tying the headscarf in the traditional way beneath the chin.

A majority of women use the traditional “basortusu” – head cover in Turkish – that is more or less loosely knotted under the chin for protection against the elements or for modesty. It can come off just as easily as it can be tied on and raises no objections. But the ban would remain on the wrap-round headscarf, which secularists claim is associated with political Islam, as well as face-veil.

Together, the AKP and the MHP easily have the two-thirds parliamentary majority required to amend the constitution. The Turkish parliament is expected to approve the amendment this week.

According to Director of Institute of Oriental Studies at the RA Academy of Sciences, Dr Ruben Safrastyan, the Turkish bill permitting to wear hijabs proves consolidation of Islamic spirit and deviation from the ideas promulgated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish secular state. “It’s quite possible that the restrained statement by Turkish military, who guarantee the Ataturk Constitution, is conditioned by a kind of agreement sealed by the AKP and the General Staff on “disclosure” of Ergenekon,” the Armenian exert said.

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