More than a dozen senior Turkish academics resigned on Wednesday in protest at President Abdullah Gul's choice of university rectors, a sign of renewed tensions between the secularist establishment and the government. Turkish media said several rectors who support the ruling AK Party, including those favourable to ending a ban on students wearing the Muslim headscarf on campus, had been picked over secularist professors.
The controversy comes a week after Turkey's highest court ruled not to close down the Islamist-rooted AKP but fined it for anti-secular activities. The tensions hurt markets. Gul, a respected former foreign minister, appointed new rectors for 21 universities on Tuesday, but rejected several candidates proposed by the Higher Education Board (YOK).
YOK, set up after a 1980 military coup to oversee Turkish universities, has traditionally been a vocal defender of the secular principles established by modern Turkey's revered founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The secularist establishment, including army generals, academics and judges, fears the government is seeking to undermine secularism and bring religion back into public life.
The pro-reform, pro-business, conservative AKP denies the charges and points to its record in office as proof. A government-led drive to lift a ban on headscarves on campus was rejected as unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, caused protests in universities and prompted a prosecutor to initiate the court case against the ruling party.
Twelve professors and teachers at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) resigned their posts to protest the appointment of Muhammed Sahin, who was not the first choice of the university. Several more academics resigned at Ankara's Gazi University, broadcaster NTV said.
Gul, a former Islamist, declined to appoint nine of the 21 candidates who won their university elections, Hurriyet newspaper said. Instead, he named professors who were second or third in the voting. Akdeniz University rector Mustafa Akaydin, a staunch secularist who as head of an inter-university board opposed government efforts to lift the headscarf ban, was vetoed. "The decision would be different with an impartial president. I am paying the price of the headscarf issue," Akaydin said.
Secularists say YOK has been a key defender of secularism, ensuring Islam does not take a foothold in the education system, but last year Gul appointed a moderate professor to head YOK.