Turkey’s Parliament Votes to Lift Head Scarf Ban
February 9, 2008 12:05 pm Turkey
European Pressphoto Agency
Tens of thousands of secular Turks demonstrated in Ankara against the lifting of a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarves at Turkey’s universities.
Turkey’s Parliament Votes to Lift Head Scarf Ban - New York Times, Feb. 9, 2008
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s parliament took a major step toward lifting a ban against women’s head scarves in universities on Saturday, 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 two articles in Turkey’s Constitution that they say would guarantee every citizen the right to go to college regardless of how they dress. Turkish authorities imposed the ban in the late 1990’s, arguing that the growing numbers 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. Large 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 family members or religious authorities, was under threat and demanding that the government step down.