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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 May 1999 Issue No. 430 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 May 1999 Issue No. 430
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Supplement Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Turkey threatened by a scarf
By Gareth JenkinsTwo weeks after unsuccessfully attempting to be sworn in as the first Turkish member of parliament to wear an Islamic headscarf, Merve Kavakci was on Sunday stripped of her Turkish citizenship. She now faces not only the loss of her parliamentary seat but also expulsion from the country.
On 18 April this year Kavakci, a 31 year-old US educated computer engineer, was elected as a member of parliament for Istanbul from the Islamist Virtue Party (VP). But on 2 May when she attended the swearing in ceremony in her headscarf, noisy protests by members of the Democratic Left Party (DLP) of caretaker Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit forced her to leave the chamber without taking the oath.
The incident triggered outrage amongst the Turkish establishment, to whom the wearing of a headscarf in a public institution is an implicit assault on the secular nature of the Turkish state. Turkish President Suleyman Demirel accused Kavakci of being an "agent provocateur working for radical Islamic states", and named Iran as one of her alleged backers.
Last Friday, as Iranian women demonstrated in support of Kavakci, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a senior Iranian cleric, branded the Turkish authorities as "bigots". "How can they be so opposed to freedom and religion that they cannot even tolerate half a metre of cloth on a woman's head?" he asked.
But other elements in Turkey's secular establishment stepped up the offensive. "Nobody can work in a state or public institution while wearing a headscarf," declared General Huseyin Kivrikoglu, the Chief of the Turkish General Staff. "This rule applies to everyone."
Turkish women protest Demirel's decision to strip MP Merve Kavakci of her nationality for wearing a head scarf (photo: AFP)Last Wednesday (12 May) the Constitutional Court temporarily returned a hasty application by Turkey's Chief Public Prosecutor Vural Savas for the closure of the VP on the grounds that it was inciting religious hatred.
"We have just asked the prosecutor to provide some additional information and documents related to some of the issues he has presented to us," said Deputy Chief Justice Guven Dincer.
Kavakci has also been the subject of an unprecedented smear campaign in the mainstream Turkish press, ranging from allegations that Kavakci called for a jihad against the Turkish government, lied about her academic record and is even wanted in the US on charges of kidnapping her two daughters after the break-up of her marriage in the US to a Jordanian Islamist activist.
"The way Kavakci has been treated is reminiscent of the persecution of Joan of Arc," protested VP chairman Recai Kutan.
But Turkish journalists also discovered that Kavakci was granted US citizenship on 5 March this year and, in what now looks to have been a fatal error, failed to inform the Turkish authorities. While Turkish legal experts disagree as to whether someone holding dual citizenship can or cannot be a member of parliament, there seems little doubt that Kavakci failed to fulfill a regulatory requirement to inform both the Interior Ministry and, as a parliamentary candidate, the Supreme Electoral Board. Yet equally there is little doubt that the speed with which Kavakci's citizenship was revoked has been politically motivated. Such procedures usually take months. For Kavakci the whole process took just two days.
"Even if she takes off her headscarf it would now be impossible for her to take the oath of office and legally become an official deputy," declared Ecevit.
Kavakci has already announced that she will appeal. "We shall go to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary," said her lawyer Osman Kidik.
But there is no indication that the Turkish establishment is prepared to compromise. It is unclear whether, without the taking the oath of allegiance, Kavakci can claim parliamentary immunity. But, even if she does, the secularist majority in the parliament is likely to vote to have her immunity lifted.
Kavakci now faces not only the withdrawal of her Turkish passport but expulsion from the country as an illegal alien. Even if she stays, public prosecutors have already announced that they are considering pressing charges against her for inciting religious hatred. If convicted Kavakci faces several years in prison.
