Parliament's human rights committee will look into the violations of the rights of victims of the Feb. 28, 1997 coup.The committee will assess applications by coup victims, and is scheduled to hold sessions on the coup's impact on the public.A memorandum issued by Turkey's all-too-powerful military, self-styled guardian of a secular Turkey against what it defined as an Islamist government, paved the way for the country's so-called "postmodern" coup. Prior to the memorandum that led to the resignation of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and in its aftermath, the conservative population of the Muslim-majority country faced a witch-hunt by the country's secular elite. A ban on the hijab, previously not strictly enforced, led to protests by Muslim students refused admittance to their schools and scenes of young women harassed by police, these are among the most haunting images of the most recent large-scale coup, in the same country where the military seized power in 1960 and 1980.Restrictions as well as a coefficient applied to the marks of students from the Imam-Hatip schools, which offer extra theology classes, and the hijab ban at universities, these forced many to drop out of higher education or to go abroad to study. Students managed to return to school almost one decade after the coup, while hijab-wearing civil servants such as teachers only regained their right after lengthy legal battles. The coup also affected men. In the public sector, conservative civil servants "caught praying" during work hours faced discrimination and eventual dismissal, while those with spouses wearing hijab faced disciplinary action and sometimes dismissals. A large number of military officers with a conservative background were forced to quit the army when the witch-hunt escalated.