ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Friday he backed the Islamist-rooted government's proposal to lift a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in universities, a move opposed by the secular establishment.
"Universities should not be places of political controversy, beliefs should be practiced freely at universities," Gul, a former foreign minister in the AK Party government, told a conference in his home town Kayseri.
As head of state, Gul is expected to be neutral in political disputes but his support for the government on the headscarf issue is no surprise, given his past in political Islam.
Last year the secular elite, which includes army generals and judges, tried to block Gul's election as president because of his past and the fact his own wife wears the headscarf.
The crisis forced Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a close ally of Gul, to call early parliamentary elections that their AK Party won resoundingly.
The popular pro-business, centre-right AK Party and a key opposition party agreed on Thursday to cooperate to lift the ban on women students wearing headscarves in universities.
The ban will still apply to teachers and to women working in public offices.
"It's a good step but not sufficient because after graduating women will be faced with the same problem again. If they become doctors they won't be able to wear the headscarf at state hospitals," said Fatma Disli, a columnist at the English language newspaper Today's Zaman.
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It will definitely happen because they have already lifted the university ban.
January 25, 2008 Turkish Leaders Agree to Lift Ban on Headscarves at Universities
Turkish universities appear set to soon lift their ban on the wearing of headscarves on their campuses by observant Muslim women, according to reports by the Financial Times and the BBC.
The country’s governing Justice and Development Party, whose origins are in political Islam, and the main opposition Nationalist Movement Party reached an agreement on Thursday to amend Turkey’s Constitution to end the ban.
“The issue is a bleeding wound in higher education [and] has to be solved,” the two parties said in a joint statement. The parties command enough support in Turkey’s parliament that changes endorsed by both should be assured of passage.
The Turkish newspaper Zaman reported that the amendments include a new phrase to be added to Article 42 of the Constitution. It states that “no one shall be deprived of the right to higher education because of their apparel.”
Details of the amendments remain to be hammered out, however, and a meeting scheduled for today to discuss specifics was postponed until Monday, with an opposition-party member telling reporters, “We have completed our studies, but the [Justice and Development] Party has not.”
Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, who shares Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s roots in political Islam, praised the move to lift the ban, which is viewed by Turkey’s secular political and military establishment as a crucial symbol of the country’s secular identity. “Universities should not be places of political controversy, beliefs should be practiced freely at universities,” said Mr. Gul, who as head of state is supposed to remain neutral on politically controversial issues. Mr. Erdogan had made clear his intentions to lift the headscarf ban last year. —Aisha Labi
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I cheer for this as well as I'll cheer when the day comes Saudi and Iran lift the ban on women going out without "Islamic" clothing...
Posts: 407 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2007
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posted
Copy and paste. I thought you disagreed with that?
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
Okay let me get one thing straighten out here:
Exiled/Dunes is concerned about Turkish Muslimas and their headscarves but doesn't find it at all strange to call up other women and meet them for coffee - and wifey sits at home??
Does this make sense to anyone?
You are such a MORON and HYPOCRITE and the same applies to the copy & paste issue!!
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tigerlily: Okay let me get one thing straighten out here:
Exiled/Dunes is concerned about Turkish Muslimas and their headscarves but doesn't find it at all strange to call up other women and meet them for coffee - and wifey sits at home??
Does this make sense to anyone?
You are such a MORON and HYPOCRITE and the same applies to the copy & paste issue!!
Last week I dealt with a psycho that took out her angst on me and other members. This week it seems someone else is a little unstable.
Seriously I posted this topic 4 days ago and this nut is replying now in a twisted way. I wonder what was going through her mind when she felt the impulse to lash out – I wonder what transpired in her life to make her act in such a way. Here is another angry post she posted less than 30 minutes after this angry one. All is not well in K-Town is it.
I am not your husband so do not take your misery and anger out on me.
Posts: 2418 | Registered: Nov 2007
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Oh god forbid I didn't open up your topic earlier but I was too busy reading more interesting news!!
Dunes you got my point. You preach one way but act the other. You don't have your shi*t together! How many times did I tell you how sorry I feel for your wife? But then again she might doesn't know better, you got her perfectly trained CONGRATS!!
Oh btw I am not angry, no you are mean when you say my husband is killing Muslims and raping women in Iraq - I wonder if you might just wanna get a piece of ass of an Iraqi woman yourself!!
M-O-R-O-N.
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tigerlily: Oh god forbid I didn't open up your topic earlier but I was too busy reading more interesting news!!
Dunes you got my point. You preach one way but act the other. You don't have your shi*t together! How many times did I tell you how sorry I feel for your wife? But then again she might doesn't know better, you got her perfectly trained CONGRATS!!
Oh btw I am not angry, no you are mean when you say my husband is killing Muslims and raping women in Iraq - I wonder if you might just wanna get a piece of ass of an Iraqi woman yourself!!
M-O-R-O-N.
I see you are having consecutive bad days in K-Town. I would appreciate if you would stop dumping your personal anger and frustrations in life on me. You mentioned the word ‘trained’ and it is really interesting as to why you would choose such a word. You are after all a soldier’s wife, who happens to reside on a military base. Could it be that you are talking about yourself as being ‘trained’ by your husband to live such a life? Surely not many women would want to spend their years living on a military base. It is also commonly understood that people who conjecture ideas about people they don’t know are in fact using their own personal experiences to conjecture such notions about strangers.
P.S Don’t fool yourself about not having read this thread earlier. You are the copy and paste queen who is proud to read everything and anything as soon as it is published on the World Wide Web.
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