A delegation of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) led by Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ on Wednesday visited the parliamentary groups of political parties to consult with them on the planned constitutional amendment on the right to wear headscarves.
Within this scope, the AK Party visited the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Good Party (IP), the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) as well as the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The headscarf was once a source of deep discord in Türkiye – its once-powerful secular establishment saw it as a threat to the secular order. But the question ceased to stir controversy after reforms by the AK Party during its 20 years in power.
However, the secularist CHP, a party having long opposed the wearing of headscarves in Parliament and public offices, revived the issue last month with a proposal to enshrine the right with legislation, in an attempt to attract support from conservative voters.
Instead of a bill, the AK Party sought to make constitutional amendments to guarantee the right to wear headscarves once and for all. Raising the stakes, the president said the amendment would also encompass measures to protect the family.
He said a referendum could be called if the bill did not win support from the minimum 360 deputies in the 600-seat Parliament needed for constitutional changes. The AK Party and its nationalist allies have 334 seats.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also touched upon the issue during a joint live broadcast on the ATV and a Haber channels on the same day, saying that there is no problem regarding women with headscarves anymore as there are currently prosecutors, judges, soldiers, teachers and governors with headscarves in the country.
“Therefore, it is now possible to see ladies with headscarves in every institution of the state. Where did this come from? (CHP’s revival of the issue) The whole question is, 'How many votes can I gather in the upcoming 2023 elections?'” Erdoğan said.
Following the AK Party’s visits, CHP Group Deputy Chairperson Engin Altay said that the party would not be part of the works on the constitutional amendment.
Speaking on the meetings, Bozdağ said: “We focused on the general framework and expressed that we need their contribution and their opinions in for the preparation process. We said that we would present the proposal to Parliament after clarifying and shaping it according to their views and opinions.”
Bozdağ underlined that the AK Party did not go to the visits with an already prepared amendment but that the process would be shaped together with the views of the other parties.
The HDP and IP responded by saying that they would discuss the issue within their party and state their views following this process.
Turkish headscarf-wearing women have long struggled under laws that prevented them from wearing headscarves at schools as students and in public institutions as professionals, despite the prevalence of headscarf-wearing women in the country. The CHP had fueled anti-headscarf sentiment among the people and supported laws banning it.
The issue of the headscarf ban held an important place in public and political debates in Türkiye throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
The headscarf ban in Türkiye was first implemented widely in the 1980s but became stricter after 1997 when the military forced the conservative government to resign in an incident later dubbed the Feb. 28 "postmodern coup."
Parliament lifted the ban on female students wearing the headscarf at university in 2008 in a move championed by Erdoğan and which the CHP lawmakers, including Kılıçdaroğlu, had sought unsuccessfully to block in the constitutional court.
In 2013, Türkiye lifted the ban on women wearing headscarves in state institutions under reforms that the government said were designed to bolster democracy.
