Turkey's chief prosecutor on Friday accused the country's president and prime minister of undermining secularism and moved to ban them from politics and to prohibit their Islamist-rooted party.
Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, chief prosecutor of the court of appeals, submitted his case against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to the Constitutional Court, court president Hasim Kilic said.
"Attached ... is a demand that 71 individuals be banned from political activity," Kilic said, adding that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, a former AKP member, topped the list.
The Constitutional Court has yet to say whether it will agree to hear the complaint, which charges that the AKP has become a focal point for attempts to overturn the strictly secular ethos that underlies Turkey's Constitution.
The AKP, whose roots in a now-banned Islamist movement have sown fear among secularist circles, branded the case as a blow to democracy and said it would "continue its fight for democracy with determination."
"The target of this case is not the AKP, but Turkish democracy and Turkish people," deputy party chairman Mehmet Mir Dengir Firat said after an emergency meeting of the AKP's leadership.
"This is the biggest injustice committed against Turkey, our democracy, the will of our nation, our peace and stability, our prestige in the world," he said.
The prosecutor's move is the latest round in the AKP's bitter battle with Turkey's secular forces -- among them the army, the judiciary and academia -- which has raged since the party came to power in 2002. Secularists accuse the party of having a secret plan to introduce religious rule in the mainly Muslim country. The AKP rejects the charges and says it is fully committed to secularism.
Last year, the row climaxed when the AKP promoted Gul as president and secularist pressure forced Erdogan to call a snap election, which handed the party a solid victory and a second term in power. Tensions flared again last month when the AKP pushed through parliament a controversial reform to allow women to wear the Islamic headscarf -- - viewed by many as a sign of defiance against secularism -- in universities.
Many analysts here see the row as a transition of power from a secular urban elite to more conservative middle-class circles in rural areas that the AKP largely represents.
"Certain judicial institutions should not use the law as a tool in the struggle for power ... Democracy and law should not be forced into a face-off," Firat said.
Gul, who had to resign from the AKP before he could take up his role as president, urged Turks not to overreact to the dispute.
Judges will start studying the indictment against the AKP tomorrow to decide whether to accept the case, an official said.
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