Amid debate over a constitutional amendment on the freedom of wearing headscarves, Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop said politicians from all parties and people of all segments of society agreed upon the issue.
Speaking in a televised interview on Monday, Şentop said he believed that Parliament would overwhelmingly vote for the amendment.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) submitted an amendment proposal to Şentop last month, with the signature of 366 lawmakers of the 600-seat Parliament.
Although the AK Party is credited with lifting a long-standing ban on headscarves years ago, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), a party that long opposed the wearing of headscarves in Parliament and public offices, revived the issue last October with a proposal to enshrine the right with legislation, to attract support from conservative voters, ahead of the 2023 elections.
Şentop said his family too was the victim of the headscarf ban, counting two sisters and cousins among them, who "had to drop out of school in their senior year and were expelled," for wearing headscarves.
"But this issue was resolved in 2012 with a collective public agreement and Türkiye adopted a new mindset. Except for individual cases, this is a resolved issue. Kılıçdaroğlu made a new proposal. As a matter of fact, everyone agrees upon the need for a permanent solution to this issue. It was resolved earlier through a new law but it is risky as laws solely cannot give you freedom because the law can be annulled in the future in case of a change of majority in Parliament.
"Thus, a constitutional amendment is required. I see parties have agreed toward such a solution, so, I believe it will have over 400 votes (required for implementation) in Parliament," he said.
He pointed out that a referendum would be needed if the necessary votes remain somewhere between 360 and 400 and it would be better to have such a referendum in parallel with the upcoming general elections as the election schedule was "tight." Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced they would consider holding a referendum on the issue and it could be held on the same day as the elections.
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.
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, Erdoğan announced earlier that the amendment would also encompass measures to protect the family.
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 women wearing headscarves in the country.
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 CHP Chairperson Kemal 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.