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Turkish court annuls headscarf law

Turkey's top court on Thursday annulled a law allowing women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities on ground it violates secularism.

The court claims that the law breached constitutional provisions that describe Turkey's secular system as an unalterable principle.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) pushed through the constitutional amendment on the headscarf in February. That act was the principal argument advanced by Turkey's chief prosecutor when he asked the constitutional court in March to ban the AKP on charges that it is seeking to install an Islamist regime.

Thursday's ruling was largely seen as a signal the court will go against the AKP when it decides whether to outlaw it and bar 71 party officials, among them Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, from politics.

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