Turkey's top court re-imposes headscarf ban

Turkey's top court on Thursday annulled a law allowing women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities, on grounds that it violated the country's secular principles, a court statement said.

The 11-judge tribunal ruled against the law because it ran counter to constitutional provisions which say Turkey is a secular republic and that this principle is unalterable, the brief statement said.

The law, pushed through by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), was central to a case that seeks to ban the party on charges that it is covertly seeking to replace the secular order with an Islamist regime.

The Constitutional Court ruling could indicate an unfavorable outcome for the AKP party, and increases the likelihood of a ban on it and its 71 members, among them Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, observers say.

The AKP, which came out of a banned Islamist movement, pushed the amendment through parliament in February despite fierce objections that the change was a threat to the strict separation of state and religion.

The main opposition party asked the Constitutional Court to abolish the law on the grounds that it was an affront to the secular system.

In a non-binding report, the court's rapporteur recommended that the case be thrown out, arguing that while the tribunal had the right to examine whether the passage of a constitutional amendment was procedurally flawed, it could not pass judgment on its fundamental aim.

The Constitutional Court has in the past twice ruled against moves to lift the on-campus ban on headscarves.

The ban has been upheld by the Council of State, Turkey's top administrative court, as well as the European Court of Human Rights.

Hardline secularists -- among them the army, the judiciary and academics -- see the headscarf as a symbol of defiance against secularism, a basic tenet of the 84-year-old republic.

They also say that easing the restriction in universities will put pressure on women to cover up and pave the way for the lifting of a similar ban in high schools and government offices.

The AKP rejects charges of being anti-secular and argues that the headscarf ban -- imposed after the 1980 military coup -- violates freedom of conscience and the right to education.

The party has disowned its Islamist roots and embraced Turkey's bid to join the European Union, but maintains that rigid interpretations of secularism in Turkey breach religious freedoms.

Opponents argue that moves such as allowing the Islamic headscarf in universities and banning alcohol sales in restaurants run by AKP municipalities, coupled with rhetoric in favor of broader religious freedoms, indicate a secret Islamist agenda.