Turkey lifts ban on Islamic headscarves

AFP/Reuters/AnkaraTurkey has lifted a decades-old ban on headscarves in the civil service as part of a package of reforms by the Islamic-rooted government meant to improve democracy.The measure was hailed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose wife wears a headscarf, as a “step toward normalisation” and came into effect after it was published in the Official Gazette.“We have now abolished an archaic provision which was against the spirit of the republic. It’s a step toward normalisation,” Erdogan said in a parliamentary speech to his ruling party lawmakers.“A dark time eventually comes to an end,” he said. “Headscarf-wearing women are full members of the republic, as well as those who do not wear it.”But critics accuse Erdogan of lifting the ban to force his Islamic values on the majority Muslim but staunchly secular nation.When plans to remove the ban were first announced last week, the main opposition party labelled it “a serious blow to the secular republic” created by modern Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923.Female civil servants are now allowed to wear the veil while their male counterparts can sport beards, both symbols of Muslim piety.However, the ban remains in place for judges, prosecutors, police and military personnel.Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) pledged to remove the ban on the wearing of headscarves in all domains when it came to power in 2002. It has already relaxed the ban at universities.The highly charged debate about headscarves lies at the heart of Turkey’s divisions between religious conservatives, who form the bulk of Erdogan’s AKP supporters, and more secular members of society.In 1999, Turkish-American lawmaker Merve Kavakci arrived in parliament wearing a headscarf for her swearing-in ceremony. She was booed out of the house and had her Turkish citizenship revoked.In stark contrast, a day after Erdogan’s announcement of reforms, President Abdullah Gul’s wife wore her headscarf to parliament.“There was a witch hunt for civil servants with a headscarf,” said Safiye Ozdemir, a high-school teacher in Ankara who for years had to remove her head scarf at work against her wishes, but had started to defy the ban in recent months. “Today it became clear that we’ve been right. So we are happy, and we are proud. It’s a decision that came in very late, but at least it came, thank God.”The lifting of the ban, based on a cabinet decree from 1925 when Ataturk introduced a series of clothing reforms meant to banish overt symbols of religious affiliation for civil servants, is part of a “democratisation package” unveiled by Erdogan last week.The long-awaited package – in large part aimed at bolstering the rights of Turkey’s Kurdish community – included changes to the electoral system, the broadening of language rights and permission for villages to use their original Kurdish names.An end to state primary schoolchildren reciting the oath of national allegiance at the start of each week, a deeply nationalistic vow, also took effect yesterday.But Erdogan’s opponents have found little to suggest he is curbing what they see as his puritanical intrusiveness into private life, from his advice to women on the number of children they should have to his views on tobacco and alcohol.They leapt on the dismissal yesterday of a television presenter – after she was criticised by AK Party deputy chairman Huseyin Celik for wearing a revealing evening dress – as evidence that the government’s tolerance went in only one direction.“These policies ... show not only the government’s attitudes to women but also its understanding of freedoms,” said Sezgin Tanrikulu, deputy head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which was founded by Ataturk.“There are countries which interfere in the outfits worn by television presenters, but in those countries we can’t talk about democracy,” he said in a statement.Celik dismissed such criticism, emphasising that he had not specifically named the television channel or presenter involved.“As an individual, a TV viewer or a politician, it is my right and freedom of expression to express my opinion,” he said on his Twitter account. “To exploit my comments by saying it is intervention in lifestyles is malicious.”