ANKARA, 8 February 2008 — Turkish lawmakers early yesterday voted to amend the constitution to allow female students to enter universities wearing head scarves. The issue symbolizes the divide between the Islamic-oriented government and the military-backed secular establishment. The lawmakers voted 401-110 in favor of the government’s proposed amendment to the secular constitution, which would remove the decades-old ban.

The government has the backing of a nationalist opposition party, and together they have more than the two-thirds majority in the 550-seat assembly required to make the change.

The proposal calls for the insertion of a paragraph in the constitution stating that “no one can be deprived of (his or her) right to higher education.” A second and final round of voting is slated for tomorrow and lawmakers again need to approve the move before it can become law.

The head scarf issue is a source of tension in Turkey and has divided the population among those who consider the ban an affront to the religious freedoms of pious Muslims and those who fear removing the ban would erode Turkey’s secular education system. The vast majority of Turkey’s 70 million people are Muslim, but they are divided over the role of Islam in politics and daily life.

Secularists regard the head covering as a political statement and argue it has no place in schools. They also fear that lifting the ban at universities would pressure all female students to cover themselves up.

The secularist Republican People’s Party, which has said that lifting the ban would amount to a first step toward a more Islamic rule, has vowed to challenge any change at the Constitutional Court.

“The issue is not the head scarf, the issue is secularism,” charged Kemal Anadol, a Republican party legislator. “You are indirectly trying to pierce through secularism in your usual deceiving way.” Burhan Kuzu, a ruling party legislator denied secularism was being weakened, saying: “If the proposed changes amount to what they say they amount to, I would be the first one to oppose them.”

To ease concerns, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party has stated that a loosening of the ban would be limited to universities, and would not be expanded to high schools or public offices.