http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CECFB2F8-862E-472D-BA0B-DCC2CDDB8A8D.htm
UPDATED ON:
FRIDAY, JUNE 06, 2008
17:22 MECCA TIME, 14:22 GMT
Turkey's AKP discusses hijab ruling
Thousands of women have not gone to
university because of the ban [AFP]
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party has held
an emergency meeting after the country's highest court overturned a government
move lifting a ban on Muslim headscarves at universities.
Thursday's ruling by the Constitutional Court is the most
serious setback for the party since it was elected in 2002 and may threaten its
survival.
The defeated amendment is set to play a central role in a
separate case that seeks to close the AK Party for anti-secular activities, and
ban 71 members, including the prime minister and the president, from belonging
to a political party for five years.
Friday's AK Party meeting was chaired by Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister.
Women's protest
The meeting took place as hundreds of Turkish women wearing
the hijab (headscarf) protested against the court ruling.
About 500 women demonstrated in the southeastern city of
Diyarbakir after Friday prayers, and hundreds more in colourful headscarves
chanted slogans in Istanbul.
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 headscarf reform has rekindled a decades-long dispute
over the role of Islam in a country of 70 million that is officially secular
but predominantly Muslim.
Turkey's secularist establishment, including army generals
and judges, suspect the AK Party of harbouring a hidden agenda.
Ruling party's options
Hurriyet, one of Turkey's leading newspapers, said the AK
Party executive was expected to discuss various options to deal with the
political crisis, including the option of calling an early parliamentary
election.
The Constitutional Court is expected to rule in the coming
months on the party closure case brought by the Court of Appeals chief
prosecutor.
But some analysts say that if the party feels it has been
boxed in, it may make a pre-emptive move.
Mustafa Unal, a columnist for Zaman, a religious-leaning
newspaper, said: "This verdict will affect the closure case negatively."
The political uncertainty has hit the Turkish lira and bonds
as there are fears that the government will have to put its economic reforms on
hold.
A note from Ekspres Invest, a Turkish brokerage, said: "The
only certain fact is that given the essence of the turban (headscarf) verdict,
political uncertainty will increase progressively in the months ahead until the
political vacuum is filled."
New party
Many analysts expect the AK Party to be outlawed, although
some say the court could instead decide to punish the party's leaders, given
that forming a new political party would be easy under Turkish electoral law.
Senior AK Party members recently told the Reuters news agency
that the party had started to believe that it would be closed and Erdogan
banned from politics.
The sources, who declined to be named, said the party had
begun planning to create a new political party.
Turkey has a history of banning political parties and a
predecessor to the AK Party was banned in 2001 for Islamist activities.
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