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| Europe |
| Turkish PM wants to lift headscarf ban |
| 2007-09-20 |
| Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted in the Financial Times on Wednesday as saying he wanted to lift the ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities as part of a planned constitutional overhaul. The remarks by Erdogan, whose Islamist-rooted AK Party won a new five-year mandate in July elections, could reignite tensions with Turkey’s powerful secular elite, including army generals, which suspects him of wanting to boost the role of religion. “The right to higher education cannot be restricted because of what a girl wears. There is no such problem in Western societies but there is a problem in Turkey and I believe it is the first duty of those in politics to solve the problem,” he told the FT in an interview in Ankara. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 “The right to higher education cannot be restricted because of what a girl wears." True. But the desired goal of higher education is made impossible by wearing the headscarf: a critically thinking graduate who understands she is not made more respectable, more modest or more worthy by covering her head in shame of her gender. That the Turkish PM finds headscarves acceptable in the university demonstrates he has a long way to go on his own educational path. |
| Posted by: Jules 2007-09-20 19:40 |