WUNRN
Istanbul, June 7, 2008 – The decision by Turkey’s Constitutional Court to cancel constitutional amendments that would have opened the way for women to wear a headscarf in universities is a blow to freedom of religion and other fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The court ruled on June 5 that the Turkish parliament had violated the constitutionally enshrined principle of secularism when it passed amendments to lift the headscarf ban on university campuses. The amendments were adopted by an overwhelming majority of parliament.
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“This
decision means that women who choose to wear a headscarf in Turkey will be
forced to choose between their religion and their education,” said Holly
Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This is a
truly disappointing decision and does not bode well for the reform process.”
In early February 2008, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP),
supported by the opposition Nationalist Action Party (MHP), passed changes to
the constitution concerning the principle of equality and the right to
education. The headscarf is not specifically mentioned in either of these
amendments, but the parliament’s intention was to end its ban in universities.
The Constitutional Court’s decision to annul these amendments will have a dire
impact on women university students who wish to wear a headscarf for reasons of
conscience and as an expression of their Muslim faith. Human Rights Watch has
long supported lifting the current restrictions on headscarves in university on
the grounds that the prohibition is an unwarranted infringement on the right to
religious practice. Moreover, this restriction of dress, which only applies to
women, is discriminatory and violates their right to education, freedom of
thought, conscience, religion, and privacy.
In a 2004 report,
“Memorandum to the Turkish Government on Human Rights Watch’s Concerns with
Regard to Academic Freedom in Higher Education, and Access to Higher Education
for Women who Wear the Headscarf ”, Human Rights Watch urged the government to
lift the headscarf ban as part of a broader strategy for remedying shortcomings
in the protection of women and improving their access to education and
employment. A similar approach was suggested by the United Nations Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
“The failed attempt by the AKP government to change the constitution on the
headscarf issue only highlights its failure to redraft the constitution in its
entirety, despite having promised to do so when it was re-elected,” Cartner
said. “The 1982 constitution fails to protect human rights and should have been
done away with already.”
The current constitution was drawn up in 1982 under the then-military regime
brought to power by the September 12, 1980 military coup. This constitution
severely restricts the fundamental freedoms and human rights enshrined in
Turkey’s international human rights obligations, including limitations on
freedom of expression, which have had a particularly negative impact on
Turkey’s minorities.
After being re-elected with 47 percent of the vote in the July 2007 general
election, the government promised to revise the 1982 Constitution entirely.
However, instead of producing a new draft constitution that would address the
broad range of rights concerns, the government controversially promoted only
the amendments to lift the headscarf ban that prompted the June 5
Constitutional Court decision.
Background
The constitutional changes were drawn up by the government with the support of
the opposition MHP on January 29, 2008 and passed by the Turkish Parliament on
February 6 and 9. On February 22, President Abdullah Gül approved the changes.
In response, the opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) and the DSP (Democratic
Left Party) applied to the Constitutional Court for the annulment of these
changes on the grounds that they violated the principle of secularism in
Article 2 of the Constitution.
On May 17, Osman Can, the rapporteur appointed by the Constitutional Court,
submitted a report to the court advising that the case should be dismissed on
the grounds that the court’s authority could not extend to monitoring
substantive constitutional changes introduced by a parliament. Osman Can’s
report, which had no binding power on the court, focused on the limitations on
the court’s powers and argued on the basis of the court’s previous decisions
and the 1982 Constitution that its focus should be on monitoring constitutional
reforms on a procedural basis.
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