ANKARA - Leading Turkish academics Friday warned the government against ending a ban on Islamic headscarfs in universities, saying the country's secular system was under a "serious threat."
The declaration was adopted at an emergency meeting of the Inter-Universities Board shortly after a parliamentary commission began debating a government-sponsored package of draft amendments to end the controversial ban.
"The planned amendments will accelerate efforts to eradicate the republic's principle of secularism," said the statement, read out by the chairman of the oversight board, Professor Mustafa Akaydin, at Ankara's Middle East Technical University.
"The erosion of the universities' (principles of) rationalism and scientific reason and Turkey's transformation into a religious state would become inevitable," it said.
Akaydin told reporters that some women academics were already considering boycotting classes if the bill is passed.
"We are concerned that universities will plunge into a chaotic environment and opposing groups will start clashing with each other," he said.
The declaration was one of the harshest warnings against the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) since it began drafting the bill last month.
The AKP, the offshoot of a now-banned Islamist party, has long opposed the ban on wearing the headscarf in universities, arguing that it violates both the freedom of conscience and the right to education.
Secularist forces, including the army and senior judges, see the headscarf as a symbol of defiance against Turkey's fiercely guarded secular system.
Easing the restrictions, they argue, will increase conservative social pressure on women to cover up and gradually result in lifting a ban on the headscarf in public offices as well.
In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the headscarf ban in Turkish universities was not a violation of fundamental freedoms and could be necessary to protect Turkey's secular order against extremist movements.
The draft amendments, backed also by the opposition Nationalist Action Party (MHP), include changes to the constitution and higher education law.
Together, the AKP and the MHP easily have the two-thirds parliamentary majority required to amend the constitution.
Parliament is expected to vote on the bill next week.
su/mjs
02/01/2008 12:29 GMT