Sunday, February 03, 2008

Huge pro-secular protest in Turkey

Over lifting the headscarf ban at universities in Turkey?

Defenders of the country's strict separation of church and state, including the army and senior judges, see the headscarf as a symbol of defiance against Turkey's secular system. Leading Turkish academics proposed a 'slippery slope' argument and warned "that the country's secular system was under a serious threat".
Proponents of lifting the headscarf ban at universities cited 'human rights' as their motivation:
A former Islamist whose wife and daughters wear the Islamic head cover, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's, says respect for basic human rights is his sole motivation in pushing through the amendment. "We want to lift all laws that result in all sorts of absurd restrictions on people," AKP vice president Egemen Bagis said.
Time will tell if the citizens of that nation truely value these 'human rights' they speak of, or if this is merely a ruse for the camel's nose to slip under the tent.