CAIRO — In vigorous, impatient strides, Sabiha Gimen walked to the gate of her Istanbul Bilgi University, hoping to make it through with her hijab under the new law, only to be rebuffed by the guards.
“We have no orders to allow the head scarf,” she told the Washington Post on Tuesday, February 26, echoing the words of one guard.
“Other universities are allowing it,” the 21-year-old student of international trade responded.
“Go to the other universities then!” another guard yelled as he turned Gimen away.
Monday was the first university day since President Abdullah Gul signed into law a constitutional amendment easing restricting on hijab on campus.
The change allows university students to cover their heads only with traditional scarves tied loosely under the chin. Veils covering the neck are still banned.
But many universities failed the test and refused to allow students who abided by the prescribed way of tying hijab.
Local media said three universities in Istanbul, two in Ankara, five in the western city of Izmir along with in six other cities sent back veiled students.
The defiance flew in the face of a threat from the watchdog that oversees and regulates universities to persecute university chiefs who flout the new law.
The Higher Education Board (HEB) warned that obstructing students from entering and exiting buildings where education is provided because of their head cover is a “crime.”
The country’s secular elite, including army generals, judges and university rectors, staunchly oppose easing the hijab ban.
Hijab, an obligatory code of dress in Islam, has been banned in public buildings, universities, schools and government buildings in Muslim-majority Turkey since shortly after a 1980 military coup.
Long Fight
Gimen was prepared for the adamancy of her university’s guards with a floppy knit purple cap she had stuffed in her book bag.
“Here I am, cleansed of my identity,” a sarcastic Gimen told the guards after pulling the cap on the hijab to cover it.
The guards opened the gate and allowed her in.
“We’ve been fighting this issue for years,” she told the Post.
Even academics are divided on the issue of hijab on campus.
“The day 30 or 40 students come into class in head scarves is the day I go out,” threatened Hasan Koni, a professor of international law at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul.
He claimed that by allowing hijab on campus Turkey was becoming a second Iran.
“I cannot accept this.”
But Huseyin Hatemi, a retired professor of civil law, disagrees.
“These things should be left to the woman to choose,” he told the American daily.
“Iran is wrong in forcing them to wear the head scarf, and Turkey is wrong in forcing them not to.”
With opinion polls showing a majority of Turks back an easing of the hijab ban, Gimen is optimistic.
“We will win,” she said confidently.
“My friends and I joke, we say the day that happens we will pull off our scarves and dance, hand in hand.”
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