Gul sworn in as Turkish president

[Muslimah]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/932...69E488AB4E8.htm


Gul has laughed off suggestions that he harbours a secret Islamist agenda [AFP]


Abdullah Gul, the current foreign minister, has been formally sworn in as Turkey's president.


He is the first former Islamist to win the post in Turkey's modern history.


In contrast to past inaugurations, army chiefs, some of the secular establishment and the main opposition Republican People's party stayed away from the ceremony on Tuesday.


Gul's wife, who wears a headscarf, which is banned in the country's public institutions, also stayed away.


Political analysts said that Gul faces an important test in allaying fears that his term will raise the role of religion in public life.


Parliament began voting at 3pm (1200 GMT), and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which holds 341 seats in the 550-member parliament, had no trouble in installing Gul, 56, as president.


The AKP only needed an absolute majority to secure the post. In the previous two rounds in the chamber, they failed because a two-thirds majority was required.


Two other candidates also stood for president.


'Fear-mongering'


General Yasar Buyukanit, Turkey's armed forces chief, said on Monday he saw "centres of evil" seeking to undermine the secular republic, a statement suggesting the army would not stand on the sidelines if it saw the separation between mosque and state threatened.


Special report


A series of reports on Turkey's political landscape


"The Turkish armed forces will not make any concessions ... in its duty of guarding the Turkish Republic, a secular and social state based on the rule of law," he said in a written message.


Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ankara, said: "The army sees itself as the guardian of the secular constitution [but] Gul laughs off suggestions that he harbours a secret Islamist agenda."


The Milliyet newspaper said: "Gul's election will be a turning point in our political history that could draw us one step closer to democratic maturity."


Liberals dismiss concerns over the secular system - a defining feature of the Turkish republic - as "fear-mongering" undertaken by political rivals unable to match the AKP's rising popularity.


From Gul's first speech as president


"Secularism - one of the main principles of our republic - is a pre-condition for social peace as much as it is a liberating model for different lifestyles.


"As long as I am in office, I will embrace all our citizens without any bias. I will preserve my impartiality with the greatest of care."


They see Gul's presidency as symbolic of the rise of the conservative and impoverished masses who form the backbone of the AKP - people who have long been kept at the margins of politics by the army-backed secularist elite, critics argue.


Turkey's popular Vatan newspaper said: "Gul will not have an easy start. His every step ... will be under scrutiny by institutions and sections of society who are sensitive on secularism.


"Gul will neeed to be careful and make efforts to calm them."


'Secret agenda'


The headscarf debate has


beleaguered Gul [AFP]





When Gul first stood for the presidency in April, the opposition blocked his election by boycotting parliament, while the army, which has ousted four governments since 1960, warned the government that it was "ready to defend" the secular order.


The crisis forced Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, to call early general elections on July 22, from which the AKP emerged with a huge victory, hailing it as popular support to re-nominate Gul.


Opponents charge that the AKP has a secret agenda to replace Turkey's secular order with a regime more akin to an an Islamic republic.


Uncompromising secularists are also irritated by the fact that Gul's wife wears the Islamic headscarf, which they see as a symbol of defiance of the secular system.


But a survey published in Milliyet on Tuesday showed that the majority of Turks - 72.6 per cent - have no objections to a first lady with a headscarf, while 19.8 per cent said they would be annoyed if she covers up.

[Muslimah]

Bismillah


O Allah I just make dua that I see a first lady wearing a head cover here in Egypt ameen.

[SisterJennifer]

<b>Gul, Erdogan for Lifting Hijab Ban</b>


CAIRO — Newly-elected Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan have thrown their weights behind abolishing hijab ban in universities as a part of the undergoing overhaul of the constitution.


"It is much better for (veiled women) to go to university than to stay home and be isolated from social life," President Gul told Milliyet daily on Wednesday, September 19.


He said that lifting the ban would enhance the freedoms of the Turkish people.


"We have to see the issue from the point of individual freedoms and as a result of modernity."


In an interview with Britain's Financial Times published Wednesday, Erdogan stuck a similar note, asserting that the ban deprives girls from their basic right of studying in universities.


"The right to higher education cannot be restricted because of what a girl wears.


"There is no such problem in western societies but there is a problem in Turkey and I believe it is the first duty of those in politics to solve this problem."


The commission drafting the new constitution has decided to refer the issue of whether to lift the hijab ban or not to Erdogan after failing to reach a consensus.


The draft constitution will be discussed by the ruling Justice and Development (AK) leadership on Wednesday and presented to the public next week.


Hijab has been banned in public buildings, universities, schools and government buildings in Muslim-majority Turkey since 1982.


Secularists see hijab, an obligatory code of dress under Islam, as a threat to the fiercely-guarded secular system entrenched by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who throw religion out of public life as he rebuilt Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.


<b>Not New</b>


Gul and Erdogan refuted claims that girls who do not wear hijab may come under social pressure if the ban is lifted.


"We are people who have lived side by side in peace....There can be both girls who cover up and who do not in the same family," said Gul.


"This is our social structure and we have lived like that for years."


Erdogan noted that allowing hijab in campuses would be nothing new.


"What we are trying to achieve is not a new process.


"In Turkey, it was possible to go to university while wearing the headscarf, and later you could not. So it is not a new issue."


The prime minister promised a wide-ranging debate on the new draft constitution, noting that the two constitutions were drafted by the military in 1960 and 1980.


"This constitution is going to point Turkey in a certain direction and it is our duty to debate it and consult with people in the widest possible sense," he said.


The current constitution is a legacy of the 1980 military coup.


It has been amended several times but its many critics say a fundamental overhaul is needed to stamp out its authoritarian spirit and make it fully democratic.


"We want a constitution that is going to provide and protect a state that is a democratic, secular, social state of law," said Erdogan.

[Muslimah]

Allah u Akbar may Allah Protect both of them, Makes their way easy, Grants their effort Success and falah, Makes their endeavor a praised one ameen.


May Allah Eliminate all obstacles off their way ameen and Insh a Allah Tunis becomes next.


We dont have an official Hijab ban, but for instance, by regulation a TV anchor is not allowed for it, if she chooses so, she disappears from screen. This is official. Other work places (specially private sector) might apply the same rule unofficially.