Turkey's parliament today began debating constitutional changes aimed at lifting a ban on women students wearing the Muslim headscarf in universities, but protesters said the reforms would undermine the secular state.
Parliament, where the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party has a big majority, approved the first of two articles to be changed and was due to endorse the whole package of amendments later in the day.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government has won the support of a key nationalist party, the MHP, to push through the reforms, which it has portrayed as an issue of religious and individual freedom.
But Turkey's secular elite, which includes the judiciary, university rectors and army generals, view the headscarf ban as a pillar of the separation of state and religion in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.
Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated a few miles from the parliament in Ankara today against the changes in the second anti-headscarf rally to be held in the Turkish capital in just a week.
Secularists fear the changes will push Turkey away from Europe and turn it into a more Middle Eastern-style country.