Lifting of Turkey's 90-year ban on Islamic veils in civil service sparks fears of unrest
Turkish leader's removal of 90-year-old rule prohibiting Islamic women's headscarves in civil service jobs sparks fear of further unrest
A Turkish government decree to end a 90-year-old ban on wearing Islamic headscarves and veils in civil service jobs is threatening to rekindle the secular versus religious showdown that ignited weeks of unrest in late spring.
The ban, imposed at the dawn of modern Turkey's statehood, was intended to separate religious practices from government operations.
It will remain in effect for police, judges, prosecutors and military personnel. But anyone interfering with what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan termed a woman's right to cover herself in public would face a prison term of up to three years.
Television yesterday showed female civil servants wearing headscarves to work for the first time since the early years of the Turkish republic.
Erdogan said the ruling removed an obstacle to employment for women who chose to veil themselves, according to conservative Islamic tradition.
But it is seen by critics as another attempt to reinstate the Islamic practices eradicated by Turkish founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1925 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.