ANKARA - TDN - Chief Public Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçinkaya has filed a court request for the closure of ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), accusing the party of "being the focal point of anti-secular activities."
Yalçinkaya had earlier warned AKP that its members' declarations and activities ran against secularism.
A Constitutional change last year brought stricter criteria for party closure. A party needs to be a "focal point" for anti-constitutional activities.
Yalçinkaya underlined Erdogan's speech in Spain at the alliance of civilizations summit to the effect that "no ban could be imposed on political symbols," advocating entry of Islamic headscarf to universities. Prosecutor asserted that symbols explicitly representing allegiance to a religious belief swill break up public order.
A recent government attempt to lift a decades-old ban on wearing the Islamic headscarf in universities again prompted the opposition to accuse the government of having Islamist motives.
Erdogan, like many others in his party, were involved in Turkeys political Islam movement and was jailed in the past for reciting, at a political rally, a poem a court deemed to be inciting religious hatred.
Yalçinkaya's reasons for demand to the Constitutional Court for AKP's closure are similar to ones that led disbanding of Turkey's former Islamic parties, like Welfare Party (RP) and Virtue Party (FP).