Islamist radicalisation the challenge for euro-mediterranean relations

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towards the encouragement of Islamic practice in public schools.
12
 
Although such incidents are from time to time reported in the mainstream 
media, it is hard to treat them as reliable indicators of the extent to which 
the party is promoting Islamisation in education. Indeed, they could very 
well be the acts of bureaucrats and civilians who believe that promotion of 
religiosity is acceptable under AKP rule.
13
 
These cases do not mean that the secularists do not additionally 
perceive any direct legal–political challenges to the secular system by the 
AKP. The headscarf controversy is one of the key examples cited by the 
secularists in this respect. A Council of State decision in 1984 and a 1997 
Constitutional Court decision prohibit the use of headscarves in all public 
institutions, including schools and universities. In his first term in office, 
Prime Minister Erdogan introduced two proposals partially to reverse the 
ban, both of which were successfully blocked by the secularist elite. In his 
second term in government, the AKP made its third attempt by advancing 
the proposal of the Nationalist Action Party to lift the ban in universities. 
Although the amendment was later turned down by the Constitutional 
Court, it led to severe tensions on the political scene and paved the way to 
the closure case opened against the AKP in March 2008. The Court ruled 
against lifting the ban in July 2008, but also concluded that the party had 
become the ‘centre for activities against secularism’. The Court’s official 
justification of its decision, published in October 2008, shows that the bulk 
of the evidence cited by the Court in branding the AKP as the centre of 
anti-secular activity rests on the party’s position and the speeches of its key 
figures on the headscarf ban.
14
 
Another controversial legal–political step concerns the government’s 
proposal to increase access to education for graduates of İmam Hatip 
religious schools. Based on a YÖK decision issued in 1997, graduates of 
vocational schools who take the university entrance examinations can earn 
higher scores if they apply for bachelor programmes that coincide with the 
kind of vocational school from which they graduated. This implies that 
                                                      
12
 See for example, “Parents Reveal Scandal at High Schools”, Turkish Daily News, 1 
June 2007.  
13
 Somer (2007), op. cit., p. 1279. 
14
 For the official justification of the decision of the Constitutional Court, see the 
Official Gazette, No. 27034, 24 October 2008. 

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İmam Hatip school graduates have to achieve higher scores than do the 
graduates of regular high schools to enter into non-theology faculties. In 
December 2005, the ministry of education issued a regulation that allows 
İmam Hatip graduates to earn degrees from regular high schools by taking 
corresponding courses and thus to be on a level playing field with regular 
school graduates in entering non-theology faculties. YÖK objected to the 
regulation, however, leading to its suspension by the Council of State in 
February 2006.  
For the secularists, both the headscarf controversy and the dispute 
over  İmam Hatip schools are gradual attempts at Islamising Turkish 
society and the state bureaucracy. In the case of the headscarf debate, the 
secularists (women in particular) view the headscarf as a “visible symbol of 
the Islamisation of Turkish society”.
15
 Regarding the ban in universities, it 
is often asserted that the young women who do not wear a headscarf 
would be compelled to do so over time owing to social pressure, 
particularly in Anatolian towns where there is already strong attachment to 
Islamic/conservative values. With respect to the dispute over İmam Hatip 
schools, the secularists complain that the AKP is attempting to infiltrate the 
state administration by facilitating the entry of Islamists into the related 
faculties in universities. For the AKP and its supporters, both cases involve 
the removal of discrimination and the promotion of individual liberties.
16
  
It may indeed be argued that both attempts are related to tackling 
discrimination and that the fears are overstated. The TESEV survey, for 
example, found that although 64% of its respondents believed that the use 
of the headscarf had increased over the years, its use was actually found to 
have decreased between 1999 and 2006.
17
 The perceived increase may be 
linked to rising migration and urbanisation, which has led to the growing 
visibility of headscarved women in society. Furthermore, there is a high 
 
                                                      
15
A. Rabasa and F.S. Larrabee, The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, RAND 
Corporation/National Defense Research Institute, Santa Monica, CA, 2008, p. 61. 
16
 Ibid., p. 64. 
17
 The TESEV survey found that the percentage of headscarved women fell from 
73% in 1999 to 61% in 2006. See Çarkoğlu and Toprak (2006), op. cit., pp. 58-59. 

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degree of societal support for both lifting the headscarf ban in universities 
and facilitating the entry of İmam Hatip graduates to non-theology 
faculties.
18
  
These initiatives could be considered positive and necessary steps, 
had they not been separated from the broader issue of democratic reform in 
Turkey. The AKP government – particularly in its first term – undertook 
important measures towards democratic reform to fulfil the Copenhagen 
political criteria. Nevertheless, especially from 2005 onwards, the reform 
process slowed down considerably, leading to disappointment among both 
EU circles and the reformist forces within the country. The government was 
perceived as attempting to appease the status quo forces in Turkey, for 
example through its reluctance to abolish outright Article 301 of the Penal 
Code, which regulates offences that involve “insulting Turkishness, the 
Republic, the parliament and state institutions” or to undertake any reform 
relating to the Kurdish issue. The party started preparations on the drafting 
of a new ‘civilian’ constitution soon after the 2007 elections, but the 
constitution project was abruptly put on hold in early 2008. After the 
closure case, the party seems more cautious about pressing for legal–
political changes that may be interpreted as promoting Islamisation,
19
 but it 
is also apparent that the AKP is very reluctant to take any steps on the 
democratisation front. 
This stance can partly be explained by the rise of nationalist 
sentiments in the country in response to the resumption of violence by the 
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the perceived need on the part of the 
AKP to forge an alliance with the highly nationalist establishment to 
                                                      
18
 The TESEV survey found that 71% of the public is against the headscarf ban in 
universities and 82% of the public believes that İmam Hatip graduates should be 
on a level playing field with regular school graduates in the university entrance 
examinations (ibid., p. 96 and p. 24). 
19
 One of the cases that is demonstrative of such caution involves the proposal of 
an AKP MP on the protection of children, which included establishing a place of 
worship in schools for students of every religion. The proposal was immediately 
dropped after a warning by Prime Minister Erdogan to refrain from controversial 
actions in the eyes of the public in the aftermath of the closure case. See “PM 
Lashes Out at Deputy for Controversial Youth Proposal”, Turkish Daily News, 13 
August 2008.  

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