Turkey’s ruling party on Friday denounced a court’s upholding of a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities, after an emergency meeting of the Islamist-rooted group that itself risks being outlawed.
The country’s Constitutional Court on Thursday annulled a Justice and Development Party (AKP) law allowing women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities, on the grounds that it violated Turkey’s secular system, enshrined in an unchangeable constitutional article.
Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, vice-president of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP, said the court’s decision “violated” the separation of powers by overruling a majority vote in parliament.
PHOTO: AP
“It is an unprecedented verdict which will be debated for a long time,” he told reporters after the six-hour meeting.
The prime minister cut short a visit to Istanbul to return to Ankara to chair the meeting. Firat said Erdogan, who did not speak to reporters afterwards, would address AKP members of parliament over the issue on Tuesday.
The law in question was the principal argument advanced by Turkey’s chief prosecutor when he asked the Constitutional Court in March to ban the AKP, on charges that it is seeking to install an Islamist regime in the country.
Some party members have even suggested Erdogan should call snap elections after the ruling, media reports said.
The judgement was largely seen as strengthening the prosecutor’s hand in his bid to outlaw the AKP and bar 71 officials, among them Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, from politics. The verdict is expected later this year.
Since the court “sees the headscarf amendment as a breach of the republic’s basic principles, it will give the gravest punishment to the party which is responsible for this act,” the Vatan newspaper wrote.
“A decision to close down the AKP has become inevitable,” it said.
The annulment of the headscarf amendment is Erdogan’s “greatest political defeat” since the AKP came to power in 2002, the liberal Radikal daily wrote.
Overriding fierce objections by secularists, the AKP pushed the amendment through parliament in February, boosted by its re-election for a second five-year term in July with nearly 47 percent of the vote.
The party, the offshoot of a now-banned Islamist movement, says it is committed to secularism, but argues that the headscarf ban in universities violates both the freedom of conscience and the right to education.
But hardline secularists — among them the military, the judiciary and academics — see the headscarf as a symbol of political Islam and defiance of the secularist system.
The AKP, backed by a number of jurists, slammed the Constitutional Court for overstepping its jurisdiction, saying it can examine only procedural flaws in constitutional amendments, and not their essence.
Senior AKP member Bulent Arinc ahead of the party meeting accused the tribunal of “abusing its powers” and interfering in parliament’s legislative realm.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese