BY MUHARREM SARIKAYA
SABAH- In the words of one influential Justice and Development Party (AKP) figure, we can see the government's priorities in its choice of freedoms. He said this because the government postponed changes to Turkish Penal Code (TCK) Article 301 while prioritizing legalizing the wearing of headscarves at universities. In other words, it set aside key legal changes for the progress of Turkey's European Union membership bid, but made headscarves its most important issue. Actually, this is business as usual for the government. As I've said before, the AKP often acts like a hyperactive child. First it discusses an issue, then it gets bored with it, and so it finds another one to deal with. For example, Articles 301 and 221, the latter dealing with criminal penitence.
As for the headscarf issue, although Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the issue solved while hurting no one, problems within the party will continue. Even if disciplinary steps are being pursued against Konya Deputy Husnu Tuna and Isparta Mayor Hasan Balaban, who both announced plans to lift the headscarf ban in official settings in general, the problem won't end, because so many within the AKP agree with them. Maybe Erdogan will soften some harsh elements within the party during the spring 2009 local elections, as he did during last year's general elections. But until then, efforts by those seeking to make waves through the issue will mount, because they're dealing with it with political aims. That's why two university students visited Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) parliamentary group deputy chairman Oktay Vural yesterday. Talking about the deputy and the mayor, the students said that the two don't want to solve the problem, but instead intend to stir things up and make the issue political fodder. In other words, the AKP made the issue its priority and then the MHP embraced the issue due to next year's local elections.
Mehmet Sandir, deputy co-chair of the MHP parliamentary group, also told me that the AKP was trying to win votes by trampling the nation's sensitivities and that they wouldn't allow this. Sandir added that he was concerned the AKP would try to exploit religion in the local elections, but that these efforts would be frustrated. Balaban said that the MHP wants to lift the headscarf ban only at universities, but that it should be lifted everywhere. Although it's unclear if the proposed changes would be approved by Parliament or face a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) review, discussions along these lines and the current situation are enough to show that it faces a deadlock.