Hundreds of headscarved women protested Friday against a court ruling to cancel a reform which would have allowed students to wear the Muslim garment at university.

About 500 women demonstrated in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır after Friday prayers, and hundreds more in colourful headscarves chanted slogans in Istanbul.

"I'm crushed and feel hopeless. I really don't feel equal to anybody else in this country anymore," said Esra Altınay Özbecetek, 29, who ditched university when she was 19 because she was not allowed to wear her headscarf to class. [Link]

The dispute in Turkey reminds us of the importance of allowing 'others' emotional depth.

Just as a flag is not merely a swatch of material – stars, stripes, sickles – a scarf is no longer a piece of silk. Turkey is set to repeal its longstanding scarf ban in university settings – setting off a firestorm of controversy about class conflict, human rights, and the rise of Islam in a country fearful of religious influence.

Secular Turks, outraged that religious Muslim women may soon sport their head scarves in even elite urban schools, have resorted to demeaning their fellow citizens. As Turkish political philosophy professor, Atilla Yayla, told The New York Times, the secular Turks "don't encounter them [the religious Turks] as human beings.... They want them to evaporate, to disappear as fast as possible."

The developing story in Turkey of its heated head scarf dispute is an important reminder to us all. Conflict, especially internecine, grows dangerous when dehumanization begins.

It is one thing to disagree about the appropriateness of religious symbols in public places, to debate and be divided on the necessity of separation of church and state – or in this case, mosque and school – but it is another thing entirely to deny the humanity of a group of people.

We see the beginning of this process emerging in Turkey; dehumanization is so often incubated in callous language, in angry labeling, in base and unfair generalizations. We see the end of this process in the tragic examples of Rwanda, Bosnia, the Middle East, and even in the fates of America's hate-crime victims Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, among many others....

We will not, ultimately, be protected by laws or bombs. We will only be protected by the continued fight against dehumanization in all its myriad forms, and the renewed effort to focus on developing emotional awareness and empathy in our children and in ourselves. A flag is not just a flag. A scarf is not just a scarf. And a human heart, well it is most certainly not just an organ. It is our fiercest weapon against annihilation, and our most inspired ally toward creating a more peaceful world. [Link]

Parliament took a major step on Saturday toward lifting a ban against women’s head scarves at universities, setting the stage for a final showdown with Turkey’s secular elite over where Islam fits in the building of an open society.

Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a measure supported by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to change the Constitution in a way they say will guarantee all citizens the right to go to college regardless of how they dress.

The authorities imposed the ban in the late 1990s, arguing that the growing number of covered women in colleges threatened secularism, one of the founding principles of modern Turkey.

Secular opposition lawmakers voted against the change, with about a fifth of all ballots cast. Crowds of secular Turks backed them on the streets of the capital, Ankara, chanting that secularism — and women’s right to resist being forced to wear head scarves by an increasingly conservative society — was under threat. [Link]

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have reached an agreement to lift the ban on the headscarf on university campuses, party officials said yesterday.

The parties have decided to amend Articles 10 and 42 of the Constitution to remove the ban. Negotiations on more technical details about the amendments will continue between the parties. After these negotiations are completed, the leaders of both parties will hold a press conference to announce the text they have agreed upon. [Link]

An angry debate over a ban on the Islamic head scarf, which is strictly forbidden in public buildings in Turkey, spilled into view this week, with the country’s secular elite vehemently opposing any loosening of the restriction.

The head scarf ban is one of the most emotionally charged issues in Turkey today. This week’s back-and-forth between politicians from two different classes of society — a rising group of observant politicians and a secular elite that has long ruled the country — signals a larger battle to come as the two groups struggle for control of the Turkish state.

On Friday, one of Turkey’s highest courts, the Council of State, issued a stern warning on its Web site about loosening the restriction in universities, saying that allowing head scarves in universities would mean their use could spread to other public buildings, “ultimately hurting peace in society.” Turkey’s judiciary, one of the principal parts of the state from which the secular elite derives its power, banned head scarves in universities in the late 1980s. [Link]