Turkey\u2019s ruling party on Friday submitted a constitutional amendment to parliament enshrining women\u2019s right to wear headscarves at work and in daily life, reviving a hugely divisive issue in the officially secular state.
\nThe highly-politicised decision by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s AKP party comes six months before the next election \u2014 one that promises to be a heated and tight race.
\nThe overwhelmingly Muslim country\u2019s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had sought to settle the issue when he forged a more European-focused Turkey out of the Ottoman Empire\u2019s ashes a century ago.
\nBut headscarves still polarise the nation of 85 million, and a coalition of conservative lawmakers led by Erdogan\u2019s party submitted the constitutional amendment to the parliamentary speaker after collecting 336 lawmakers\u2019 signatures.
\nParliamentary debates are expected to begin in the second half of the month, turning headscarves into a headline issue of the upcoming election campaign.
\nErdogan\u2019s 20-year stint as prime minister and the president saw him champion the rights of conservative Muslims \u2014 including veiled women \u2014 after decades of more secular rule.
\nBut it was his likely presidential rival from Ataturk\u2019s secular CHP party who appeared to push Erdogan to mull constitutional changes that could be up for a referendum.
\nKemal Kilicdaroglu \u2014 trying to woo Erdogan\u2019s core supporters and strip away some of the AKP\u2019s vote \u2014 accused the president of trying to \u201chold veiled women hostage\u201d.
\nHe conceded the CHP had \u201cmade mistakes in the past\u201d by imposing headscarf curbs and now wanted to write women\u2019s right to cover themselves in schools and at work into law.
\nLifting restrictions
\nErdogan immediately went on the offensive.
\n\u201cIs there discrimination against veiled or unveiled women in schools or in public service? No!\u201d Erdogan said.
\n\u201cWe were the ones who achieved this.\u201d
\nDiscouraged in the name of modernity when Ataturk formed contemporary Turkey in 1923, headscarves were gradually banned from schools and offices.
\nThe AKP began to change that in 2008, lifting the ban at universities, colleges, and then in the civil service, parliament and the police.
\nTurkish women overwhelmingly hailed these measures, said historian Berrin Sonmez, who is also an ardent defender of women\u2019s rights.
\n\u201cThose who view the headscarf as a religious symbol that contradicts the principles of secularism should understand that [their thinking] is discriminatory,\u201d Sonmez said.
\n\u201cProhibited or compulsory, the headscarf violates women\u2019s rights only if the rules for wearing it are imposed by the state,\u201d said Sonmez, who is veiled.
\nWeighed down by criticism from some feminists, veiled women would benefit from guarantees to safely stay covered up while going to school or work, Sonmez said.
\nIn the absence of more recent studies, she cited a 2012 survey showing 65 per cent of Turkish women wearing a headscarf.
\nShe estimated that half of them do so today.
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