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Turkey Crosses Threshold On Islamic Headscarves

Turkey is breathing a sigh of relief after four female AKP deputies wearing headscarves to the parliament's general assembly caused only minor grumbling from the staunchly Kemalist opposition.
Turkey's ruling Ak Party (AKP) lawmakers Nurcan Dalbudak (C) and Sevde Beyazit Kacar (R) attend the general assembly wearing their head scarves at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara October 31, 2013. Four female lawmakers from Turkey's Islamist-rooted ruling party wore their Islamic head scarves in parliament on Thursday in a challenge to the country's secular tradition. The last time a lawmaker attempted to wear the head scarf in parliament in 1999 she was expelled from the assembly. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (TUR
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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.

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