Fifth female AKP deputy to attend Parliament wearing headscarf

ANKARA

Canan Candemir will become the fifth AKP female lawmaker to wear the headscarf in Parliament. AA Photo

The ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party’s Bursa deputy Canan Candemir announced on Nov. 1 her decision to attend Parliamentary sessions while headscarved, joining four female deputies who entered the General Assembly meeting on Oct. 31 wearing veils.

Candemir wore a headscarf publically for the first time during an official ceremony at the reopening of the historic Aslanhane Mosque in Ankara after it had been restored.

Along with Sevde Beyazıt Kaçar, Gülay Samancı, Nurcan Dalbudak and Gönül Bekin Şahkulubey, Candemir will become the fifth AKP female lawmaker to wear the headscarf in Parliament. The AKP counts with 46 female deputies among their ranks.

The attendance of veiled deputies to the General Assembly, some 14 years after the then Virtue Party (FP) lawmaker Merve Kavakçı was expelled from the parliamentary session, took place without any major protests.

The government hailed the “maturity” showed in the Turkish Parliament while the opposition expressed their satisfaction of having solved a long-heated issue by consensus.