Fourteen years ago, Merve Kavakci, the daughter of a former dean of theology at Ataturk University and a dual Turkish-US citizen, was hounded out of the Turkish Parliament because of her Islamic headscarf. She had just been elected deputy from Istanbul in the April 18, 1999, general elections, running with the now-defunct Virtue Party led by Necmettin Erbakan, the towering figure of Turkish political Islam.
Coming to parliament in blatantly Islamic garb was a red line for staunch secularists, who considered this a serious provocation by religious reactionaries bent on undoing the modern republic established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The hooting and banging of desks in protest did not end until Kavakci was forced to leave the general assembly.