http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7438348.stm


Court annuls Turkish scarf reform
A Turkish woman demands the right to wear a headscarf
The AK Party says the headscarf is a matter of personal freedom

Turkey's highest court has blocked government moves to allow college students to wear Muslim headscarves.

The Constitutional Court said that a vote by parliament to ease a ban on scarves being worn on campuses violated the constitution's secular principles.

The government argues that a headscarf ban stops many girls being educated.

But much of the secular establishment resisted the move, seeing it as a step towards allowing Islam to figure more largely in Turkish public life.

The ruling, by a panel of 11 judges, could foreshadow the outcome of a separate court case in which the ruling AK Party (AKP) could be banned for anti-secular activities.

Some 71 members of the party, including the prime minister and the president, could also be banned from belonging to a political party for five years.

Power struggle

"It is a historic ruling... It signals that hard times are coming for the AKP," said veteran politician Husamettin Cindoruk.

But a senior party member of the AKP, Bekir Bozdag, said the court had overstepped its jurisdiction.

"This is interfering with both democracy and parliament's legislative authority," he told the AFP news agency.

The headscarf ban is seen by some as one of the cornerstones of the secular state - a symbol of the exclusion of Islam from state activities.

The secularist establishment, which includes the army, courts and universities, is opposed to any reform of the ban.

The AK Party, which was re-elected last year with a convincing 47% of the vote, says it is a matter of personal and religious freedom.

It used its strong presence in parliament to push through a parliamentary amendment in February overturning the ban in universities.

Thursday's court ruling is the latest episode in a power struggle between the establishment and the AK Party, which has its roots in Islamism.

Last year's elections were forced after a constitutional impasse over whether the AKP's Abdullah Gul could be the country's president.

Turkey's chief prosecutor says the AKP is "the focal point of anti-secular activities", and is seeking to have it disbanded.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Turks don't seem anxious to revert to the days of the Caliphate anytime soon, it appears.

<O> <O>

I think it is in the interest of the USA to back the elected government and not the unelected courts and Army leadership.

The AK party are showing that a moderate Islamic party can govern a modern tolerant state. They are not seeking to control people of other faiths or secularists, they just want the same kind of accommodation for Islam in Turkey as we have in the USA for all religions.

The AK Party has continued as a NATO ally and de facto ally of Israel.

The AK Party takes the same stance towards Islam as the European Christian Democratic parties take towards Christianity - as a basic guide of values without being severe.

This could be a positive factor in the Islamic Reformation - other Muslims in places like Saudi Arabia will look at Turkey and say "why can't we be like them?"

It seems the US and Australia are partially benefiting from Turkey's headscarf ban- talented, middle class, moderately religious Turkish families often migrate for greater religious freedom and economic opportunities. They bring not just cultural riches and brain power, but greater perspective on Islam to boot. It also further fires on women like Merve- but it doesn't take much to keep a femme formidable like that stoked.

quote:

This could be a positive factor in the Islamic Reformation - other Muslims in places like Saudi Arabia will look at Turkey and say "why can't we be like them?"

Unlikely. 500 years of occupation still kinda stings even after 90 years. Turkey is not an Arab culture, and their brand of Islam differs sharply with their neighbors. They may share the same religion in name but they are about as 'friendly' towards each other as Czarist Russia and Imperial Germany were in 1914.

Sullivan013