HÜDA PAR (Free Cause Party) General Executive Board Member Zehra Çiftçi issued a strong call on Saturday for the constitutional protection of headscarf freedom, marking the 26th anniversary of the university headscarf ban of September 14, 1999.

In her statement, Çiftçi described September 14, 1999, as “the day the headscarf ban was institutionalized” in Türkiye, recalling that the Higher Education Council’s (YÖK) Rectors’ Committee decision at the time prohibited students from wearing headscarves across all areas of university campuses — including classrooms, laboratories, social facilities, and sports halls. “That day marked one of the harshest thresholds of the February 28 process reflected in universities,” she said.

Çiftçi highlighted the notorious “persuasion rooms” implemented at Istanbul University as a symbol of the systemic oppression faced by young Muslim women during the ban era. “One of the most symbolic practices of that period was the persuasion rooms established at Istanbul University, which forced headscarf-wearing students into hours of oppressive interviews to convince them to remove their headscarves,” she said.

She also named former Istanbul University vice-rector Nur Serter as the face of these practices, emphasizing that young women were kept waiting at university gates, forcibly escorted into these rooms, and forced to choose between their religious beliefs and their education. “These bans left deep wounds in the memory of Muslim women and indelible marks on the conscience of society,” she stressed.

Çiftçi acknowledged that significant steps had been taken since 2010 to dismantle the ban, noting that YÖK’s 2010 announcement effectively ended the headscarf ban in universities, the 2013 amendment to the Dress Code Regulation allowed headscarves in public institutions, the Ministry of Education lifted the ban in secondary schools in 2014, headscarf freedom was introduced for female police officers in 2016, and in 2017 it was extended to female personnel in the Turkish Armed Forces. Despite these gains, Çiftçi emphasized that headscarf freedom still lacks constitutional protection.

Calling on the government to take action, Çiftçi warned that without a constitutional guarantee, headscarf freedom remains vulnerable to future political changes.

“It is still possible to change these regulations with a different political choice,” she cautioned. “The surest way to prevent this oppression from happening again is to proceed with legal and constitutional regulation. As Muslim women, our call to the government is to constitutionally guarantee the headscarf as soon as possible.”

HÜDA PAR has consistently advocated for rights-based reforms and religious freedoms in Türkiye’s legal framework, including constitutional protections for the headscarf — a demand that remains a focal point in the party’s political agenda. (ILKHA)