ANKARA - President Ahmet Necdet Sezer has vetoed a controversial law pardoning thousands of students expelled from universities, including those wearing Islamic style-headscarves which are banned in strictly secular Turkey, his press office said Wednesday.
The law, which allows students expelled from school on academic or disciplinary grounds after June 2000 to return, is technically an amnesty and should have been adopted by a three-fifth majority in the 550-seat parliament, a statement from Sezer's office said.
But there was no indication in the minutes of the session that the required majority was attained, the statement said.
"President Sezer has returned the law to parliament for reconsideration," it added.
Critics have blasted the law as a "populist measure" and said that its main beneficiairies will be women who have been kicked out for wearing headscarves.
Headscarves are regarded by the establishment as a symbolic declaration against the mainly Muslim nation's strictly secular order and are banned in schools and public offices.
Faced with a general outcry, officials have said that women who continue to wear headscarves will not be allowed back in to universities.
The bill, which is expected to open the way for some 240,000 students to return to education, was drawn up by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which emerged from the ashes of a now-banned Islamist movement.
The AKP denies any hidden Islamist agenda and is a strong supporter of Turkey's aspirations to join the European Union, but it is nonetheless viewed with suspicion by the secular elite.
The Turkish president can only vetoed the bill once.
If parliament re-adopts the law, then Sezer will have to approve it, but he can challenge it in the constitutional court.
03/02/2005 15:26 GMT