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Muslim Woman Politician Risks Jail for Insulting Turkey
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| Kavakci prosecuted for
protesting Turkish anti-veil laws |
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 (IslamOnline and News Agencies) - Turkish state prosecutors filed a lawsuit Monday against a Muslim woman politician who sparked turmoil in parliament three years ago by trying to take the oath wearing a headscarf, Anatolia news agency reported.
Merve Kavakci, now living in Washington D.C., is accused of insulting the Turkish state, an offence that carries between one and six years in jail, over an interview she gave to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television last November.
Her comments, also aired on a Turkish channel, lashed out at Turkey for "attacking and discriminating" against women who wear the Islamic headscarf, the Anatolia report said.
Predominantly Muslim but strictly secular, Turkey bans women from donning headscarves in public offices and universities because they it alleges it is tantamount to making a political declaration against secularism.
Kavaksi also headed the Women's Commission of the now-banned Refah Party.
Kavakci was forced to abandon her medical studies at Ankara University because Turkey's secular rulers believe that a woman's veil prevents her from acquiring knowledge. She migrated with her parents to the U.S. to study computer science.
Kavakci, won a parliamentary seat in the 1999 elections on the list of the now-banned pro-Islamic Virtue Party (FP), but was not allowed to assume her post after attempting to take the oath of office wearing a headscarf. The move triggered uproar in the assembly hall at the time. Kavakci's attempt to take oath wearing a headscarf was cited in the ruling.
The government later stripped her of her citizenship after it emerged that she had also acquired U.S. citizenship without permission from Turkish authorities, as required under Turkish law.
The constitutional court banned her party, the FP, last June because they claimed it promoted anti-secular activities.
Turkey's secularist elite, led by the powerful military, constantly clamps down on political Islam, fearing it could sway Turkey, a European Union hopeful and member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, from its pro-Western path. 
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