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Turkey's Headscarf Proposal Faces Fierce Opposition

By Howard Friedman

As previously reported, the major political parties in Turkey are taking steps to reverse the country's traditional ban on university women wearing the Muslim headscarf. Today's Toronto Globe and Mail carries an article on the passionate opposition to the proposal among secularists and the military:

[T]he head scarf has become an issue that is threatening to split Turkey in two. The bill received an explosive response yesterday from Turkey's secular establishment, who see it as a menacing incursion of Islam into a country that has kept religion at bay since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's democratic revolution in 1925. "Turkey is headed step by step toward becoming a theocratic state," one MP, Onur Oymen, said during the parliamentary debate. The head of Turkey's army issued a veiled threat yesterday. "All segments of Turkish society know very well the position of the military on this issue," General Yasar Buyakanit told reporters, somewhat cryptically.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 31, 2008 (boomark / email).