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Good afternoon and thank you all for staying. Thank you for the conference organisers,

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for this opportunity for all of us to explore the issues that we spend our lives

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researching but don't usually have the opportunity to talk about together this paper.

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Oh, okay. Thank you. This paper is the final chapter of my dissertation.

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The rest of my dissertation looks at the patriarchal nature of secularism and its effects on women's political participation through the headscarf.

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Specifically, Islamic or Islamists.

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Women, depending on how you define Islamic or Islamic women in Turkey.

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This paper is entitled The Impact of European Court of Human Rights Decisions pertaining to the headscarf on Islamist women in Turkey,

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enabling an emancipation or legitimising discrimination.

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However, today I'm only going to talk about one of the cases. This paper first talks about the decision.

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Layla in Layla Shaheen v Turkey. Then it talks about the reaction to the decision within the Turkish state and on Turkish relations.

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So in 2005, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued its decision in Layla Shaheen v Turkey,

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a case that focussed on university university age Turkish woman who wore the headscarf

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while attending university classes in her final semester of medical school.

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Layla Shaheen faced a ban that the university had just implemented banning headscarf women from attending classes, tutorials and exams.

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The state had for a long time associated the headscarf with Islamist politics and

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being a secular state had banned the headscarf in order to protect secularism,

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or so the state said. This represented more of a struggle between the long ruling secular elite and the powerful growing religious parties.

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The secular elite were intent on keeping university spaces what I have deemed elsewhere as sacred secular spaces.

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Places where religion could not enter. For fear that if it did, the state's secular nature would crumble.

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Thus, by putting this ban in place, the state kept many religious women or many women, along with religion, out of the university structure.

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So consequently, Leila Shaheen was one of nearly 26 million women in Turkey banned from universities,

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some hospitals, courtrooms, parliament and working in national government offices.

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Shaheen appealed first to the university and to courts within Turkey.

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However, each ruled against her.

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Finally, her case was heard by the European Court of Human Rights, first by chamber and then by the Grand Chamber who issued its decision in 25.

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Shaheen's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights was based on was partially

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based on Article nine of the European Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms,

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which states that, quote, Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

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This right includes the freedom to change his or her religion or belief and freedom,

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either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

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Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such

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limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society,

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in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

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Shaheen Clique claimed that by disallowing her to enter the university based on the fact that she wore a headscarf for religious reasons,

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the state was interfering with her right to observe her religion.

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And in its decision, the European Court of Human Rights agreed that Shaheen was the state,

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was in fact interfering with Shaheen's right to observe her religion by denying her the opportunity to go to school with her head covered.

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However, the court found that the Turkish Turkish state was justified in disallowing Shaheen to attend university because of this expulsion,

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and not allowing other women to attend was prescribed by law and necessary to keep democracy in the interest of public safety.

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For the protection of public order. For health. For morals.

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And for the protection of rights. And others. In fact, in the Grand Chambers decision, the European Court of Human Rights States secularism,

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although completely undefined by the Turkish Constitution or Turkish legal codes,

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is a founding principle of the Turkish Republic, and that ultimately secularism is the guarantee of democratic rights in Turkey.

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The headscarf. The European Court of Human Rights agrees, is antithetical to secularism.

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Thus, Layla Shaheen's rights were not violated.

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The court justifies its assessment further by stating that in paragraph one or nine,

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the court does not lose sight of the fact that there are extremist political movements in Turkey which seek to

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impose on society as a whole the religious symbols and conception of a society founded on religious precepts.

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The regulations concerned have to be viewed in that context and constitute a measure intended to

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achieve the legitimate aims referred to above and thereby to preserve pluralism in the university.

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It should be mentioned that neither the state nor Shaheen associated the headscarf with Islamist movements in their their pleas to the court.

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The court took this on and brought this as part of the facts that they researched in their own writing of their opinions.

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Furthermore, in paragraph one of ten or 110,

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the Court states that having regard to the above background is the principle of secularism as elucidated by the Constitutional Court,

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which is the paramount consideration underlying the ban on wearing on the wearing of religious insignia in universities.

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It is understandable in such a context where the values of pluralism respect the rights of others,

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and in particular equality before the law of men and women are being taught and applied in practice that the relevant

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authorities would consider that it ran counter to the furtherance of such values to accept the wearing of religious insignia,

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including, as in the present case, that women's jeans cover their heads with a headscarf well on university premises.

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Thus, the Court is stating that wearing the headscarf is counter to the values of pluralism, democracy and others rights.

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Previous scholarship has discussed the legal merits of the shaking decision, noting and respecting, in particular, its approach to the,

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quote unquote margin of appreciation that the court allows for bearing in law between states and its discussion of gender.

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But I want to briefly make another point concerning the court's decision in striking Layla Shaheen as an individual, actually, not even as a woman.

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She does not discuss gender. And her complaint goes to the court asking for protection of her right to the freedom of religion.

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The court, in its rulings, deny her this protection through both the facts the Court asserts and the legal merits of its judgement.

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The Court treats Shaheen as a member of an Islamist conspiracy group hoping to overthrow Turkish secularism and democracy.

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Consequently, the court restricts Shaheen's rights on these grounds.

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However, in its decision, the court approaches the Turkish state as a singular, indivisible, homogenous entity,

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recognising that it embodies the, quote unquote, revolutionary principles of secularism and democracy.

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It may not be said that the Turkish state is not a homogenous individual or indivisible government or state.

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Furthermore, the court says that in order to protect the state's ability to control these Islamist women and minorities,

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we are only talking about women, not men. The court is not ruling on any sort of religious periods,

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nor are there laws in Turkey to prevent men who wear beards from entering the same places that women can't enter if they were headscarves.

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We're talking about individual women's rights, including the right to attend university,

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the right to freedom of speech, the right to religious observance, and the right to oppose the state.

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The court justifies its actions partially by stating that a ban on the headscarf is necessary in order to preserve women's equality,

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thus overlooking the fact that many of the women that I interviewed for my research point out that if you wear the headscarf,

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you are frequently going to university to overcome some of your economic.

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Position, which for a lot of women is not as high as they would like.

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They want to go to university to get an education, to work their way up the socio economic ladder,

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to have their own money, to empower themselves educationally and socio economically.

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And through this decision on the state, Turkish state's stance that they cannot do so was demised.

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The decision has had an enormous impact on the overall political situation in Turkey,

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not just on individual political women and on Turkish political parties.

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Turkish EU accession politics are complex and I will not fully explain them here, but a quick overview can be summed as follows In 1949,

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when Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe and in 1963 when Turkey became an associate member of the EU,

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the elected ruling party in Turkey was the joke a party supported by the urban educated secular league.

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Ataturk's party who founded Turkey. When Turkey was founded, it looked towards Europe as a model for modernity,

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and EU accession to many had made obtaining this modernity, or at least EU acceptance.

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In 1987, when Turkey made its formal membership application to the EU, Turgut was a member of the Netherlands Party, was the Prime Minister.

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The Motherland Party was different from the joke as the Motherland Party supporters were less urban,

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less educated and more religious in the day of its supporters.

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However, the Motherland Party Party's policies of economic integration with Europe made many of the business minded supporters very pleased.

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And it was the Prime Minister who worked at the World Bank,

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and both LaSalle and his party pushed for EU accession because the economic opportunities it

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would bring as it basically became clear that EU accession would require democratising reforms,

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resulting in a shift in power balance in Turkey, who was pro and against EU accession changed.

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The GOP became less supportive of the EU because it meant the power structure that they had benefited from for so long would change.

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And simultaneously a series of Islamic and Islamist political parties began to come to power in Turkey.

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The Reform Party, the Welfare Party and the AKP, the AKP in particular, had many of the same supporters as the Motherland Party,

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and thus the AKP began pushing for EU accession because it thought that it would be

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better off for better economic opportunities for its supporters and would force the GOP,

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whose power had stemmed from close military ties to relinquish its relationship to the military,

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which would allow democratisation reforms and ultimately benefit the AKP.

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For several years, especially between 2002, when the AKP was first elected to 2004, when the EU agreed to start negotiations with Turkey.

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The Turkish EU accession process seem daunting but perhaps manageable.

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However, according to many AKP politicians that I interviewed,

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a large part of Turkey's desire to join the EU was the Islamic AKP's belief that the European

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Union would help it overcome the democratic roadblocks of the GOP have kept in force for so long,

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including the headscarf ban, which might then plagued Turkey for 15 years.

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When the Shaheen's decision was announced, AKP officials noted their disappointment.

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The European Court of Human Rights and even with the European Union, although the courts and the Union are not technically related.

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Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan stated that he was, quote unquote,

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shocked that the court had ruled against Shaheen and would not allow headscarf women within the universities.

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He furthermore was caught off guard that the AKP had not,

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or that the court had not protected the rights of women to get an education and individual rights generally.

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So the party as a whole was truly surprised that the court had not ruled in favour of headscarf for women in Turkey.

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And this, I found out through research interviews, began a downturn in Turkish EU relations.

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The Shaheen decision is not the sole source of a lot of the slowdown in Turkey's EU accession.

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But the AKP felt that after this decision decision was announced that the EU was more of a Christian club

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than they ever had before and that Turkey would not be welcoming it under any circumstances at any time.

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Consequently, the AKP focussed Turkey's foreign relations elsewhere, most notably on developing relations with Syria and Iran.

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And in some interviews I conducted,

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the interviewees noted that Shaheen started a mindset within the arc of the court will never further write in Turkey.

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Why should we concentrate our political power on this? It's not a priority, and we've been rejected essentially by Europe within Turkey.

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The Shaheen decision also had two other notable effects.

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First, it changed the rhetoric that headscarf wearing women used to advocate for their rights before Shaheen

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headscarf when women advocated for their rights by stating it was part of their freedom of religion.

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Post Shaheen headscarf wearing women starting using the framework of human rights by which to advocate for their position.

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This change in discourse, ironically, led to headscarf women, forming coalitions with other human rights groups such as gays,

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lesbians and Kurds that their previous rhetoric had not connected themselves, not connected them with.

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Second, the part of secular Turkey that within secular Turkey, or at least secular, it's part of Turkey.

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The Shaheen decision legitimised the idea that the headscarf wearing women were

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indeed a sign of creeping Islamist threat that would result in Iran like theocracy.

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In 2008, when the AKP attempted to change the constitution to remove the ban on headscarves,

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an estimated 7 million bareheaded women marched in the streets,

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decrying that if headscarves were allowed in universities, Turkey would become the next Iran.

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This justification echoed the history the European Court of Human Rights decision in Shaheen, almost word for word.

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Ironically, by that time, even the headscarf wearing women, at least many of them, had disassociated themselves from the AKP.

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Many felt that the AKP had, quote unquote, used the headscarf decision in order and headscarf politics to recruit women as campaign volunteers

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then failed to truly attempt to ensure the headscarf wearing women gained access to university.

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This included their 2008 attempt to change the Constitution.

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Many headscarf women said that they knew that male AKP members who proposed this change to the Constitution knew

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it would fail and were only trying to do this in order to appear that they were attempting to change things.

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Thus,

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I will conclude by saying that the Shaheen decision had a you had unique and unexpected effects on Turkey relations and politics within Turkey itself.

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The decision was clearly written to, quote unquote, save women from, quote unquote, Islam.

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The court wanted to protect women, making sure that they would not be subject to being forced to wear the headscarf,

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either by their own male relatives or by headscarf when female students in schools if they were allowed.

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If these women will continue to be allowed within schools.

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However, the decision resulted in fracturing Turkish EU relations, resulting in the male leaders of Turkey developing deeper ties with Iran and Syria.

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Second, the decision legitimated the secular elite's discrimination against Islamist women,

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but not men being allowed in many public spaces spaces including universities.

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Third, the decision resulted in another switch after Shaheen the Shaheen ruling, the secularist Turkish elite,

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many of them decided that they did support EU accession more because the court,

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it seemed to them, had backed their idea that there was this Islamist threat in Turkey and legitimated the laws that kept within out of school.

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Whereas, as illustrated by some of the quotes and comments I stated earlier, the AKP felt.

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That there was no real point in pursuing EU accession and turned against EU accession in many ways, although not formally.

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Finally, the decision resulted in women who supposedly needed to be saved from the veil, fighting even more adamantly for their veils.

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Yet doing so using the very language of human rights that was used by the European Court of Human Rights to deny them their rights.

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And these women turning against the Islamist political parties whom they viewed as males who had failed to secure women's rights to veil.

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Ironically, this assisted them in developing what is truly an individual based notion of rights in Turkey.

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Thank you. I look forward to.