ANKARA - Turkey's top judge said Monday that any move to ease a ban on Islamic headscarves in universities and public offices would be a breach of the country's strictly secularist constitution.
The head of the constitutional court, Mustafa Bumin, issued the warning in a speech to a high-level audience including Prime Minister Recep Erdogan who advocates the lifting of the ban.
"As long as secularist principles remain in the constitution, all legal arrangements that would allow women wearing the headscarf to enter universities as students and then public service as employees would be a breach of the constitution," Bumin said.
Bumin denounced recent proposals to scrap the headscarf ban in universities as "behaviour aimed at gaining political advantages by exploiting religious feelngs."
The abolition of the ban will "lay the ground for an atmosphere that will lead to confrontation between young people," he warned.
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP), an offshoot of a banned Islamist movement which now describes itself as a conservative democrat party, has vocally criticized the ban as a breach of religious freedoms and the principle of equal opportunity of education.
But wary of attracting the ire of the army-backed secularist establishment, it has refrained from any moves to ease or scrap the restrictions.
The secularist elite sees the headscarf as a symbolic political statement against Turkey's secular order.
On several occasions, Erdogan and other government members have been forced to attend official functions without their wives who wear headscarves.
The majority of AKP lawmakers boycotted a high-level reception at the presidential palace in October after the staunchly secularist President Ahmet Necdet Sezer refused to invite wives who cover their heads.
04/25/2005 11:02 GMT