Turkey lifts ban on headscarves in public institutions

Supporter of Turkish PM Erdogan holds party flag during rally in Istanbul Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday announced that his government would lift a ban on wearing headscarves in public institutions as part of reforms to boost rights. \"We are lifting the ban in public institutions,\" said the prime minister, in a move drawing criticism from secularists who see it as fresh evidence of the government pushing an Islamic agenda.
Education has been one of the main battlegrounds between religious conservatives, who form the bedrock of support for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party, and secular opponents who accuse him of imposing Islamic values by stealth.
The secularist fears were fuelled this year when Erdogan said his goal was to raise a “religious youth” and the AK Party, in power for the past decade, pushed through a reform of the education system which boosted the role of religious schools.
Under the latest regulation, announced on Tuesday and going into effect from the 2013-2014 academic year, pupils at regular schools will also be able to wear headscarves in Koran lessons.
Erdogan said the reform, which also ends a requirement for pupils to wear uniform, was taken in response to public demand.
“Let’s allow everyone to dress their child as they wish, according to their means,” he said at a news conference in Madrid on Tuesday.
“These are all steps taken as a result of a demand.”
Rivalry between religious and secular elites is one of the major fault lines in Turkish public life.
Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party has tamed the influence of the military - the self-appointed guardians of secularism since the modern republic was founded in 1923 - over the past decade, but he denies an Islamist agenda.
Last month the military top brass attended a reception in the presidential palace alongside the headscarved wives of the president and prime minister, something that until recently would have been unthinkable.
Source: AFP