Tension Between Secular State and Religious Faith

Bomb attacks, blamed principally on Kurdish guerrillas but also perpetrated by Islamist extremists, have killed hundreds and brought carnage to Turkish cities, resorts and military targets for a generation.

But the tension between moderate Islam and the state goes back further, to the foundation of the modern secular Turkish state by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk more than 80 years ago.

Islam may have been removed from the offices of state, but it has remained the majority culture, and moderate Islamist parties have proven popular. The AKP's forerunner, the Islamic Welfare party, won power in 1996, only to be driven out a year later on similar charges to those now facing the AKP.

The attempt to close the AKP was triggered in February by a constitutional amendment - since annulled - lifting the universities' ban on the female headscarf, long suspected by the secular establishment as a symbol of political Islam.

But a 161-page indictment compiled by the chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, alleges numerous other anti-secular moves, including attempts to clamp down on alcohol by local authorities.

Proposals to bring in halal food standards were never enacted but have led to many firms feeling obliged to apply them, prosecutors say.

Some teachers point to a surge in religious education. Health professionals have also reported a rise in cases of religious female doctors declining to treat male patients, and husbands refusing to allow their wives to be treated by male doctors.

Alevis, a heterodox sect that shuns many traditional Islamic practices, complain of being subjected to "neighbourhood pressure" - with devout locals checking to see if they are fasting during Ramadan and inviting women to Qur'an-reading sessions at which they must wear headscarves.