emerging from Friday prayers at a local Sunnì
mosque. The failure of Islamist activists to con-
demn the Sivas massacre, as it came to be known,
has left a deep scar in the Alevi psyche.
Indeed, the debate over secularism and the role of
Islam in society and politics continues to be one of
the major issues dividing modern Turkey as it
strives to cement over three decades of largely unin-
terrupted democratic rule.
Turkey’s current constitution was drawn up in
1982 by the rigidly pro-secular military after it had
seized power directly for the third and last time in- The constitution imposed stiff curbs on free
expression, with the result that thousands of
Turkish nationals have since been jailed for so
called non-violent “thought crimes.”
A separatist insurgency launched in the country’s
predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces by
the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) led
to a sharp rise in human rights violations through-
out the 1990s as government forces resorted to
brutal methods, including arbitrary detentions, tor-
ture, and the forcible evacuation of thousands of
Kurdish villages, to stamp out the rebellion. In
1994 a special state security court sentenced four
ethnic Kurdish members of parliament to 15 years
in jail on thinly supported charges that they were
linked to the PKK; among them was Leyla Zana, a
female Kurdish parliamentarian from the south-
eastern province of Diyarbakır, whose chief offense
was to have addressed the parliament in the
Kurdish language during an inaugural session in - All four were released pending an appeal on
9 June 2004 in a move aimed in part to persuade
the EU to begin membership talks with Turkey by
the end of 2004. The same day Turkish state-run
television aired its first ever program in the most
widely spoken Kurdish dialect, Kurmanji.
In 2003 the parliament passed legislation lifting
bans on teaching Kurdish as a language in privately
run language courses, but teaching in the Kurdish
language is forbidden still. Turkey’s human rights
record has been repeatedly cited by EU govern-
ments as one of the main reasons why Turkey has
been denied entry to their organization so far.
Bibliography
N. Pope and H. Pope, Turkey unveiled, London 1997,
324–5.
United Nations, Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women, Committee
on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women,
Combined fourth and fifth periodic reports of States
parties, Turkey, August 2003.
United States Department of State, Turkey, Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2002, Wash-
ington, D.C., <http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/
18396.htm>.184 freedom of expression
United States Department of State, Turkey, International
Religious Freedom Report 2003, Washington, D.C.,
<http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/24438.htm>.Amberin ZamanThe United StatesMuslim women struggle against demeaning stereo-
typical images depicting them as incapable of being
productive elements in society. They often find
themselves confronting cultural trends within the
Muslim community that hold them to a high stan-
dard of moral discipline yet deny them any signifi-
cant role in shaping the future of their own
community. But Muslim women are diverse along
lines of ethnicity, religious attitude, and occupation.
Their experiences and views on gender and freedom
of expression issues are even more complex.
Muslim women wearing ™ijàb, the attire that
varies in style but usually covers the hair, neck, and
body except for the face and hands, have been the
most vocal in recent years in pressing for their right
to practice their faith. Feeling empowered by the
constitutional protection of freedom of religion,
many Muslim women share the view that being
American does not mean shedding their religious
convictions. After all, the United States is a plural-
istic society that has produced and marketed many
modes of dress around the world. So, while the
ethnic South Asian shalwar kameez and the Arab
thawbhave given way to contemporary North
American clothing styles, the ™ijàbhas survived
because it stems from deeply held religious beliefs.
While the ™ijàb has caused controversy, for
example, in uniformed occupations, the issue is
increasingly regarded as a matter of freedom of reli-
gion in the workplace and at school. The Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal
government agency set up to implement the em-
ployment clauses of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
has advocated the right of women to wear ™ijàbat
work. The law requires employers to offer reason-
able accommodation to the religious practices of
employees.
Often the discriminatory treatment experienced
by women wearing ™ijàbis overt and could con-
ceivably be challenged in court. However, most
potential plaintiffs are not willing to make waves,
cannot afford the usually high cost of legal counsel,
or simply are unaware of their legal rights. In many
cases, Muslim women denied their First Amend-
ment right to wear ™ijàblook for other jobs or relax
their fulfillment of religious requirements to fit the
demands of employers, just as some Muslim men