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Turkey's Pro-Islamic Party Banned
ANKARA, June 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Turkey's constitutional court on Friday outlawed the pro-Islamic Virtue Party for anti-secular activities, but limited the electoral side-effects of the move by letting most of its deputies keep their parliamentary seats.
The party, Turkey's main opposition party and third biggest political force, was accused of activities that violate the secular status of the mainly Muslim country, and in particular, promoting the wearing of headscarves by women.
Virtue had 102 of the country's 550-seat parliament, and the court's decision to strip only two of those deputies of their parliamentary mandates meant that Turkey would evade much-feared by-elections, which would have become necessary if at least 20 MPs had lost their seats.
The verdict, announced by court president Mustafa Bumin, is expected to relieve the embattled government of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, which feared political instability from new elections at a time when it is implementing vital IMF-backed reforms to save the economy from a bottleneck.
The Virtue Party was charged with inciting protests against a headscarf ban in universities and orchestrating a failed bid by one of its legislators, Merve Kavakci, in 1999 to take an oath in parliament wearing a headscarf. (Please see text of IslamOnline's Live Dialogue with Merve Kavakci)
That move was seen as a symbolic challenge to Turkey's strictly secular order, which is firmly upheld by the country's powerful army that sees what it calls "radical Islam" as one of the main threats to stability.
The verdict made Virtue the fourth pro-Islamic party to be banned in Turkey, where the secularist elite, led by the military, has constantly clamped down on political Islam due to fears that it could drag the country from its pro-Western path, although Virtue has been considered more moderate than some of its predecessors, reports BBC.
The court also banned five party members, including the two ousted MPs - Nazli Ilicak and Bekir Sobaci - from politics for five years for acts and remarks which had prompted the ban.
In addition, the court ordered the confiscation of all party assets and their handover to the treasury.
However, it rejected another prosecution charge - that Virtue was an illegal continuation of the Welfare Party, banned in 1998 for similar reasons.
Welfare leader Necmettin Erbakan, the mentor of political Islam in Turkey and its first Islamist prime minister, was banned from politics at the time.
Several months before the ban, a military-led campaign forced Erbakan to step down after just a year in power as pro-Islamic government rhetoric and practices, unprecedented then at higher state echelons, sparked fears that Turkey's secular order and its West-oriented path were in danger.
According to CNN, it is expected that the Islamic opposition will split into two groups: an older party regrouping under a new name with Erbakan, and a younger faction closer to mainstream politics.
But the ban may affect Turkey's chances of entering the European Union as critics might complain that shutting down the party constitutes an undemocratic practice, commented CNN.
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