Turkey's constitutional court on Friday outlawed the pro-Islamic Virtue Party for its anti-secular activities, but limited the electoral side effects of the move by letting most of its deputies keep their parliamentary seats, reported AFP.
The decision came despite last-ditch attempt by the government to postpone the verdict so as to evade more negative effects on the already collapsing situation in the crisis-stricken country.
The party, Turkey's main opposition party and its third biggest political force, was accused of activities that violate the secular status of the mainly Muslim country, and in particular promoting an Islamic lifestyle among Turks.
However, the verdict, announced by court president Mustafa Bumin, is expected to relieve the embattled government of Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, which feared political instability from new elections at a time when it is implementing vital IMF-backed reforms to save the economy.
The court's decision to strip only two of the party's 102 deputies of their parliamentary mandates means that Turkey will evade much-feared by-elections, which would have become necessary if at least 20 MPs had lost their seats, said AFP.
The Virtue Party was charged with inciting protests against a headscarf ban in universities and orchestrating a failed bid by one of its legislators in 1999 to take an oath in parliament wearing a headscarf.
That move was seen as a symbolic challenge to Turkey's strictly secular order, which is firmly upheld by the country's powerful army that sees radical Islam as one of the main threats to stability.
The verdict made Virtue the fourth pro-Islamic party to be banned in Turkey, where the secularist elite, led by the military, has constantly clamped down on political Islam out of fear that it could drag the country from its pro-Western path.
The court also banned five party members, including the two ousted MPs -- Nazli Ilicak and Bekir Sobaci -- from politics for five years for acts and remarks that prompted the ban.
In addition, the court ordered the confiscation of all party assets and their handover to the treasury.
However, it rejected another prosecution charge -- that Virtue was an illegal continuation of the Welfare Party, which was banned in 1998.
Welfare leader Necmettin Erbakan, the mentor of political Islam in Turkey and its first Islamist prime minister, was banned from politics at the time.
Several months before the ban, a military-led campaign forced Erbakan to step down after just a year in power, as pro-Islamic government rhetoric and practices, unprecedented then at higher state echelons, sparked fears that Turkey's secular order and its West-oriented path were in danger
The MBC satellite channel’s correspondent in Ankara said that a new pro-Islamic party was in the making to replace the dissolved party.
He said that the liberal wing of the Virtue Party was forming the “Virtuous Party,” while the conservatives were mulling their own version of an Islamic party.
Turkey, which as the Ottoman Empire once ruled a huge part of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, is witnessing rising public support for Islamism – Albawaba.com
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