Turkish Court Upholds University Headscarf Ban

Turkey's highest court today overturned a politically controversial law allowing women students to wear the Muslim headscarf at university, dealings heavy blow to the country's Islamist-leaning government and its chances of survival.

In a decision with significant implications for Turkey's future, the constitutional court upheld an appeal from opposition parties that the law- passed by parliament last February - posed a threat to its 85-year-old secular system.

The headscarf issue has become one of the most highly charged in Turkish politics, with the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) seeing it as a question of religious freedom while opponents portray it as a potential gateway to a more Islamic society. Headscarf-wearing women have complained of being expelled from classes by professors while others have worn wigs to get around the ban.

The ruling was a major setback for the AKP, which is already embroiled in a separate case - also before the constitutional court - to close it and banits leading figures from politics for alleged anti-secular activity.

Some analysts said the verdict was an indicator that the court intended to shut the AKP, a party rooted in political Islam and which was re-elected last year in a sweeping victory after successfully appealing to many non-religious voters.

"This is the harshest decision the court could have reached and it's pretty bad news for the AKP," said Soli Ozel, an analyst at Istanbul's Bilgiuniversity. "It gives us a clear sense of how the court is going to vote on the closure case."

Closure could plunge Turkey's political system into turmoil and wreak havoc with the economy, while further jeopardizing its already fraught bid tojoin the European Union. The European commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, has warned that the country's membership application could befrozen if the AKP is shut. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also warned in a report this week that uncertainty over the government's future was harming Turkey's economic prospects.

The AKP has won over many European officials and business leaders bye spousing a pro-business and democratizing agenda seen as key to Turkey'sEU membership.

However, its domestic critics argue that its liberal rhetoric conceals an agenda of imposing an Islamic society by stealth.

The closure case, brought by Turkey's chief prosecutor, cites the decision to lift the headscarf ban in its indictment.

The lifting of the ban was greeted by mass protests by pro-secularists but hailed by the government's religious supporters, who claimed that devout female students were being denied the right to higher education.

The closure indictment seeks to ban 71 AKP figures, including the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gul,from politics for five years. Several parties have been closed for anti-secularism in the past, including the Welfare party in 1997, from which the AKP was formed. Erdogan, a former mayor of Istanbul, was jailed in 1999after publicly reciting an Islamist poem. His daughters attended university in America to avoid Turkey's anti-headscarf ruling.