Secular Turks rally against Muslim headscarf reform

ANKARA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of secular Turks rallied on Saturday against a plan by the government to allow women students to wear the Muslim headscarf at university, a move they say will usher in a stricter form of Islam in Turkey.

Parliament is expected to approve a constitutional amendment next week sponsored by the ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, and a nationalist opposition party that is aimed at easing a 1989 headscarf ban for students in higher education.

Secularists fear lifting the ban would, over time, lead to heavy pressure on uncovered women to wear the Muslim garment.

"Turkey is secular and will remain secular," shouted protesters as they waved national flags and banners of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, revered founder of the republic which separated religion and state, at his mausoleum in the capital Ankara.

Turkey's powerful secular establishment, which includes army generals, judges and university rectors, sees the headscarf as a symbol of radical Islam and believe it threatens the country's secular order. Turkey is 99 percent Muslim.

"I am a true believer in Islam, but my religion is in my heart, not in what I wear. I feel that the headscarf will bring the country backwards," said Fatma Sarikaya, a retired engineer.

"Turkey is unique in this region. It has modernised Islam and we should be leading other Muslim countries," she said.

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan told a news conference on Saturday that the government wanted to expand freedoms to turn Turkey into a "first-class democracy where freedoms in all fields are enjoyed fully".

He also said Turkey must lift the ban as part of democratic reforms aimed at European Union accession. The EU has pressed Turkey to boost freedom of expression and minority rights but has no EU position on the headscarf issue.

The headscarf debate is central to Turkey's complex identity, as the young democracy struggles to meet the demands of a secular, pro-Western, and predominantly urban population and a pious Muslim one that used to be based in rural areas.

Financial markets are nervously watching the debate.

"TOO ISLAMIST"?

As recently as 1997, Turkey's army generals, acting with public support, ousted a government they deemed too Islamist.

Last year's secular rallies against the AK Party's choice of a former Islamist, Abdullah Gul, as president sparked an early parliamentary election.

Opinion polls suggest a majority in the country of 70 million, where some two-thirds of women cover their heads, back a relaxation of the headscarf ban for university students.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, which denies any Islamist agenda, has long wanted to lift the ban on the headscarf, saying the issue is a matter of religious and personal freedom, but has been wary of irking the generals.

The decision by the AK Party to push the reform reflects its confidence after it won a sweeping re-election last July.

But pressure has intensified this week with university rectors warning that allowing students to wear the Muslim headscarf at university would provoke campus chaos and street violence and end up destroying the secular state.

Secularist professors have threatened not to allow women into class if they wore the garment. Thousands of students have been expelled over the years for trying to wear the headscarf at university.

"The headscarf is not about giving women more rights, it is about forcing women to wear an Islamic garment that makes clear that women are inferior to men. Keep the headscarf in private, not at university," said Ezgi Cakin, 22, graphic design student at Baskent University.

"Turkey is a democracy, Ataturk made sure religion was out of public life and now the government wants to bring it back."

A small pro-headscarf rally was also held in Ankara.

Turkey's judiciary and top businessmen have already criticised the headscarf plan and the main opposition party, the secularist CHP, which has close ties to the army, has said it will go to the Constitutional Court to block the reform.

(Additional reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk; Editing by Caroline Drees)