Former President of the Constitutional Court of Turkey Blasts Turkish Government over Veil Dispute

Following are excerpts from an interview with former President of the Constitutional Court of Turkey Yekta Güngör Özden, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on June 25, 2008

Yekta Güngör Özden: It is the role of the Constitutional Court to defend the independence of the judiciary, the constitution, and the regime from the abuse of politicians, who think they can change the regime by parliamentary votes. Therefore, the Constitutional Court's recent ruling on the issue of the hijab did not overstep its authority.

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Yekta Güngör Özden: The kind of hijab that the court banned [in universities] is the kind that religious groups force on girls. They cover their faces and raise the edge of the hijab. Each color indicated a different religious faith. The traditional hijab, which my mother wears in her village, leaves the forehead and the ears uncovered. It is the same as the headdress she wears in order to protect herself from the sun and to keep the dust out of her hair. But the hijab that they want to permit in universities is the kind that differentiates between students on the basis of the religious groups to which they belong. This is the hijab that is used as a symbol of political Islam, which is hostile to secularism.

The state has the right to ban the hijab if it considers this to be in its interests. Ruling on issues on religious grounds destroys law-abiding, democratic states.

Turkey is the only secular democracy in the Islamic world. The freedom of religion in Turkey is greater than in many Islamic countries. I do not want to name those Islamic countries in which the security agencies and police keep tabs on mosques and worshippers, or those countries that force people to worship God in a specific way, preventing other religious groups or schools of thought from worship, or those countries that keep women under surveillance in the streets. In Turkey, secularism means separation of religion from the state. It certainly does not mean atheism. Take a look at the leaders of Islamic countries who visit Turkey with their wives, such as the Egyptian president, the King of Jordan, and the president of Azerbaijan. Their wives do not wear the hijab. Does this diminish their devoutness? On the other hand, take a look at the wife of the Turkish president, or the wife of the prime minister, and at what they wear. Isn't it obvious that this is a religious government, with a religious agenda? Is this the Turkey bequeathed to us by Ataturk? Moreover, the religious scholars in Turkey emphasize that the Koran does not say that women must cover their heads in the way our daughters are forced to do today. Even in Iran, the hijab is not worn in such a manner. What we are seeing today under the title hijab is a clear exploitation of some people's ignorance of religion, in order to force them to be obedient. This is the work of the radical religious groups, which want to deceive people and to have a monopoly on their votes. The hijab that you see in Turkey is a great deception against religion. It has nothing to do with Islam.

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Why do they insist on sending their daughters to schools for imams and preachers? Does Islam allow women to be imams? We ban the hijab in universities in order to free minds from the authority of the religious groups and from family pressure.

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If we make concessions on this issue today, the next step will be to permit the hijab in military and police academies, and in the future, it may even be imposed on everyone, like in Iran, and we will lose our republic and our democracy. Take a look at the ceremonies of this government. They force girls to wear the hijab at ceremonies attended by the minister. They do this out of flattery and hypocrisy. The principal of the school in which the ceremony is being held knows that this is a religious government, which will be pleased by this. Is this Islam? All the ceremonies of this government are reminiscent of the Ottoman Empire. This is proof that they aspire and yearn for a religious regime. I am 77 years old. Can Erdoğan and his friends teach me the meaning of Islam? Is my daughter a Muslim only if she wears the hijab, and no longer a Muslim if she removes it? Are appearances the only criteria for judging the religiousness of people? Does Recep Tayyip Erdoğan know the Koran better than our religious scholars, who say that the hijab is not obligatory? Read verse 7 of the Al-Imran chapter of the Koran, according to which people should adapt themselves to their times. Are we to discuss the hijab issue ad infinitum, ignoring the important issues concerning the country? Does this piece of fabric make a person Muslim or non-Muslim? These politicians insist on raising the issue of the hijab whenever they enter the parliament, and this is proof of their hidden agenda, from which they do not back down. Thus, the issue of the hijab has become a very important symbol of the continuing secular and democratic nature of this republic.