Reject Turkey headscarf challenge: court advisor

A rapporteur to Turkey's top court said on Friday it should reject a challenge to a ruling party reform which allows university students to wear the Muslim headscarf, broadcaster CNN Turk reported.

The rapporteur's report, which state news agency Anatolian said had been presented to the Constitutional Court, is not binding, but has to be presented to judges before the case can proceed.

The headscarf case is being monitored for clues to the possible outcome of a separate, more critical case which aims to close the ruling AK Party for alleged Islamist activities in officially secular Turkey.

The ruling party's move to lift the headscarf ban in universities was seen as a catalyst for the closure case, the indictment for which is packed with references to the headscarf.

Turkey's secularist establishment, made up of the army, professors and parts of the judiciary, sees the headscarf as a threat to Turkey's secular state and a symbol of political Islam. The court challenge to the headscarf amendment was filed by secularist opposition party, CHP.

The AK Party, which was elected with 47 percent of the vote last year, defends the use of the headscarf in universities as a matter of religious and personal freedom, and says some two-thirds of Turkish women cover their heads.

The closure case, filed by the chief prosecutor of the Court of Appeals, has hit Turkey's financial markets and the European Union candidate country faces months of uncertainty.

The AK Party, which has its roots in political Islam but is also reformist and pro-business, denies the charges and says the case is politically motivated.

As well as closing the party, the prosecutor wants 71 party officials, including Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, banned from politics for five years.

The Constitutional Court is dealing with both cases, having agreed to take up the closure case at the end of March. Eight of the court's 11 judges were appointed by former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a secularist opponent of the AK Party.

Turkey has banned more than 20 political parties for alleged Islamist or Kurdish separatist activities.