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Women march against Turkish court ruling
Hundreds of women wearing head scarves protested in Turkey on Friday against a court ruling to cancel a reform allowing students to wear the Muslim garment.
- Agencies
- Published: 16:53 June 6, 2008
- Turkish women attend a protest against the Constitutional Court's verdict about headscarves in Ankara on Friday.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Istanbul: Hundreds of women wearing head scarves protested in Turkey on Friday against a court ruling to cancel a reform allowing students to wear the Muslim garment.
About 500 women demonstrated in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir after Friday prayers, and hundreds more in colourful headscarves chanted slogans in Istanbul.
"It means we are not equal. Headscarved women will continue to suffer discrimination," said Neslihan Akbulut, head of rights group Akder.
Thousands of women have skipped university because of the ban on wearing the headscarf in school, which has been enforced since 1997.
The AK Party, whose roots are in political Islam, passed the amendment earlier this year to allow students to wear the headscarf at university.
The move angered the secularist establishment, which sees the headscarf as a symbol of political Islam and the Constitutional Court cancelled the reform on Thursday.
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