Turkey's Headscarf Row

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2017

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In May 1999, a newly elected woman MP for the pro-Islamic Virtue Party in Turkey, Merve Kavakci, appeared in parliament wearing a headscarf. She faced a strong reaction from secular MPs and the Prime Minister at the time. She was booed, shouted at and prevented from taking her oath of office. Merve Kavakci spoke to Cagil Kasapoglu about that day.

Photo: Merve Kavakci in the Turkish parliament. (Credit: Turkish Assembly TV)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC BBC.
0:02.0	BBC.
0:06.0	Hello, you're listening to the witness podcast on the BBC World Service with me,
0:11.0	Joel Casapolo.
0:12.0	Today we are going back to Turkey in May 1999,
0:16.0	when a newly elected woman MP for the Islamic Virtue Party,
0:20.0	Maruekavaktu, tried to take her oath of office wearing her headscarf.
0:25.0	She was booed and shouted that and prevented from taking the stand in Parliament.
0:30.0	I'm Cholka Sapolu and I've been speaking to Mary Kabakchi about her fight for the headscarf.
0:39.0	Once I walk in, I started hearing this hitting of some sort of wood.
0:46.0	Apparently they were hitting the desks and protesting.
0:49.0	I walked in there with another female parliamentarian.
0:52.4	We walked and set at the second row, but the protests have
0:57.1	not stopped and they rose up and started applauding in one voice, I could see the hatred, wrath in their eyes, these man and women
1:10.6	shouting in one voice, get out, get out, get out.
1:15.0	Get out.
1:16.0	Get out. We're out.
1:17.0	We should have.
1:20.0	We should have. We should have.
1:22.0	My record work too was elected an MP in April 1999 when the headscarp was a source of
1:28.7	confrontation between the secularists and the pro-Islamic politicians.
1:34.1	For the ruling Democratic leftist party, seeing Marvekawakchi walking into the parliament with
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.