Word: erdogan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...charge that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was undermining Turkey's secular democracy and seeking to turn the country into an Islamic state. The court did, however, issue a warning on the issue, and it cut public funding for the party by half, leaving Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan facing a monumental challenge to restore political stability in a nation riven by increasingly bitter divisions between secularists and government supporters...
...opponents consider to be political capriciousness. The government abandoned a much-needed overhaul of the country's constitution - a problematic document drafted by generals after the 1980 military coup - on which a broad coalition of academics and NGOs had been working. Instead, led by fiery Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, MPs pushed through just a single constitutional amendment: one that would lift the ban on headscarves in universities...
...prosecutor Abdurrahman Sarikaya reacted to the headscarf amendment by filing an indictment asking the court to ban the AKP and 71 of its politicians, including Erdogan, for anti-secularism. Erdogan has since conceded he may have made mistakes. "We need to restore social peace again. What is important is to live together under this sky in unity," he said in a Hurriyet interview on Saturday...
...judges are expected to reach a decision by next week - a verdict requires 7 out of 11 votes. They are largely a staunchly secularist group, with an aversion to the politics of Erdogan and company. But the judges are also bound to weigh the evidence on legal grounds and decide whether the government's actions, regarding the headscarf and other matters, warrant such drastic action...
...that those seeking high-level positions have Muslim credentials. Many Turks report an increase in mahalle (neighborhood) pressure to adhere to conservative norms. Newspaper ads are being Photoshopped to lengthen sleeves and skirts. Rowers on a university team were recently beaten up by unidentified assailants for wearing shorts. Meanwhile, Erdogan has called on women to have at least three children, and his cabinet includes just one woman. Under the AKP, the share of women in the workforce has dropped, from...