Word: secularists
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...elections last July, it has held on to its position as the country's first single-party government in decades. The AKP has also been careful not to offer up the radical political Islamic rhetoric that has put previous pro-religious parties in direct conflict with Turkey's secularist traditions and laws. What's more, it was under the AKP's leadership that Turkey finally began talks to join the European Union, and its economic program is aggressively liberal. (Though the same can't be said of the AKP's social policies...
...Apart from the longstanding Kurdish issue, Turkey has been increasingly edgy over the past few months, with the country's secularist establishment - mainly the military and the courts - locked in a struggle for power with the Islamic-rooted ruling party. On Monday, the 11 judges of the Constitutional Court began deliberating in the capital, Ankara, on whether to ban the AKP for anti-secularist activities. Separately, a court last week agreed to take up an indictment against 86 people - including military officers, journalists and senior businessmen - accused of high-profile political killings, extortion and violence designed to foment unrest...
...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 the party doesn't encourage conservative social trends, but merely reflects them in its own policies. They say the AKP is opposed to Shari'a or Islamic law, and point out that its legislative agenda has been far more economically liberal and pro-Western than that of its secularist opponents...
Even many Turks who don't support the AKP view the latest secularist saber-rattling with distaste. "You can't ban the most popular party in the country. It's a joke," says Alpay. "This is not really about the threat to secularism; it is about the military using the threat to sustain its position in the country...