ANKARA: Young women wearing Islamic-style headscarves have to go through a cubicle when they enter the gate to Ankara University’s Divinity Faculty. When they reappear, on their way to class, they have either unveiled or covered their headscarf with a wig.

The make-over is repeated daily under the watchful eyes of guards enforcing a ban on headscarves, forbidden in universities and public offices because they are seen as a fundamentalist political statement against the strictly secular system of this Muslim nation.

Barring the veil, it is hard to see a difference between stylish Turkish youths and the girls emerging from the cubicle. One — with her rasta wig and trendy leather coat — looks more likely to be heading for a clubber’s party than a Quranic class.

Hafize Kontbay says bias against the headscarf can be witnessed everywhere: she was recently asked to leave the front row of a state television studio and sit in a “less visible” place during a live show.

The ban has been tightened since 1997 when the powerful military launched a harsh secularist campaign and ousted Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister Necmettin Erbakan after his rhetoric and policies sparked fears for the future of the secular state.

Mass protests against the ban have failed to impress the authorities and, according to rights activists, an estimated 2,000 students who refuse to take off the veil are currently unable to attend university.

With general elections just a week away, the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party, which advocates religious freedoms, is leading in opinion polls.

But dreading the ire of the generals, the party now says the headscarf problem will not be a priority if it comes to power.

For Husnu Ondul, the head of the Human Rights Association, the ban is a “clear indication that Turkey is not democratic”. —AFP