Amal Al-Sibai

Saudi Gazette

 

For the first time in 14 years, four female lawmakers sat in a parliament session in Turkey last month wearing the hijab, the headscarf. This was a triumphant move for women’s rights in Turkey: the right to religious freedom, to be elected to political office based on qualifications, and the right to choose to wear the headscarf or not.



Rather than being shunned, the women donning the headscarves were welcomed and saluted by fellow members of parliament who gathered around their colleagues to take pictures with. Supporters of the women said that their bold move was another step towards normalizing wearing of headscarf in public institutions.



“I will no longer take off my headscarf and I expect everyone to respect my decision,” Gonul Bekin Sahkulubey, one of the four women, was quoted as saying by Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper.



The achievements of these women are deserving of celebration as one of them was even elected as the head of the municipality in one of the regions in the province of Sakarya, a Northwestern state in Turkey.



This is a far cry from a previous attempt by their predecessor who was rebuked in the Turkish parliament 14 years ago for walking into the parliament with a scarf on her head. In 1999, Turkish American lawmaker Merve Kavakci arrived in parliament wearing a headscarf for her swearing-in ceremony but she was booed out of the house and then had her Turkish citizenship revoked. Then Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, told members of parliament to “put this woman in her place”; as she left, her colleagues chanted, “Get out!”



Kavakci fled Turkey, only to go on to become a global spokeswoman for religious freedom, particularly for the rights of Muslim women to express their faith free from government coercion. That includes the right to wear or not wear religious attire.



“When a government forbids Muslims, Jews, Sikhs or anybody else who wears religious attire from doing so in public - that is unacceptable,” says Kavakci.



Ever since Turkey’s present Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to power in 2002, he ushered in democratic reforms, advocating women’s rights, and he has brought relative economic and political stability to Turkey.



On September 30th, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lifted a decades-old ban on headscarves in the civil service as part of a package of reforms meant to improve democracy and freedoms. The deep-seated ban was one of the most controversial laws in Turkey, pitting backers of the secular constitution against those who favor Islamic rights.



The measure to rescind the ban was hailed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose wife wears a headscarf, as a “historic moment”.



“The will of the people has prevailed in parliament. Women who do wear headscarves and women who do not are full members of this republic,” said Erdogan to the press after the four women wearing headscarves in parliament broke a taboo in the staunchly secular country.



The reversal of the ban on headscarves in governmental offices was part of major political reforms, including providing equal opportunities to women in the workforce and new Kurdish rights, announced last month by Erdogan.



Women wearing the headscarf in Turkey have the right to equal opportunity and the right of representation in public office. According to a 2006 survey conducted by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, the prevalence of hair covering among Turkish women is about 60%, or two-thirds of Turkish women, but of course there are regional variations.



It was when Erdogan was in office that female students attending universities gained their right to wear the headscarf in class. Banning the headscarf is an infringement of women’s rights to freely practice their religious beliefs.



However, the headscarf ban remains in place for women judges, prosecutors, police officers, and members of the armed forces.



The government is currently under fire from critics from the secularists in the country who claim that this move was part of creeping efforts to force Islamic values on the predominantly Muslim country. Once again, the heated headscarf debate is brought to the forefront of public discourse in Turkey.