Headscarved women protest Turkish court ruling

Headscarved women protest Turkish court ruling
Headscarved women protested in Turkey on Friday against a court ruling to cancel a reform which would have allowed students to wear headscarf at university.
Friday, 06 June 2008 15:44

Women demonstrated in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir after Friday prayers, and hundreds more in headscarves chanted slogans in Istanbul.

"I'm crushed and feel hopeless. I really don't feel equal to anybody else in this country anymore," said Esra Altinay Ozbecetek, 29, who had to leave university when she was 19 because she was not allowed to wear her headscarf to class.





"For 10 years I've watched people enter and graduate from university and I've just sat by and watched," she said.

Like Altinay Ozbecetek, thousands of women have not gone to university because of the ban, which has been enforced strictly since 1997, or have gone abroad to study.





The AK Party passed the amendment earlier this year to allow students to wear the headscarf at university.

The Constitutional Court, which like the armed forces is a bastion of secularism, cancelled the reform on Thursday in a ruling which analysts say has increased the chances that the AK Party will be banned in a separate case.







"Damn those behind the judges' coup," shouted protesters in Istanbul, followed by cries of "Allahu akbar!" or "God is Greatest!"

According to recent surveys, some two thirds of Turkish women wear some form of the headscarf and about the same proportion supported lifting the ban for students.

"It means we are not equal. Headscarved women will continue to suffer discrimination and that will (be enshrined in) the law," said Neslihan Akbulut, head of rights group Akder.





"If there is civilian politics, if there is democracy ... they can't ignore (women who cover their heads)," she said.






The headscarf debate goes to the heart of the officially secular but predominantly Muslim country's identity.

Some women defended the headscarf ban at university.





"Personally, I'm afraid that the headscarf could become an established symbol of the state and that wearing headscarves in universities is just the first step, so I think the (court) decision is a well grounded one," said Fatma Aslan, a 24 year-old masters student.