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A Woman at the Heart of an Islamic Controversy Speaks at Drury University

For Immediate Release: April 3

Contact:
Jeff VanDenBerg, Ph. D.
Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Middle East Studies
(417) 873-6947
E-mail: jvandenb@drury.edu

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. April 3, 2008 —Drury University is hosting a lecture by Dr. Merve Kavakci (Merv-eh Kah-vak-cheh) on the topic "Global Reverberations of Islamist Women." The talk is Tuesday, April 8 at 6:30pm in the Drury Diversity Center.

Dr. Kavakci is from Turkey and was elected to the Turkish parliament from the Welfare-Virtue Party in 1999. However, because she wears the Islamic headscarf, Dr. Kavakci was prevented from taking her seat in parliament. Her party was closed down and her Turkish citizenship was revoked, banning her from politics for a period of five years. She took her case to the European Court of Human Rights and won in 2007.

Dr. Kavakci’s case became an internationally known issue on the question of religion and politics. Her case helped set the stage for the 2008 decision by the Turkish parliament to relax some of the severe restrictions on religious expression in Turkey, a policy now being challenged in Turkey’s Supreme Court.

This event is co-sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Studies Center, the Women and Gender Studies Program, the Diversity Center, and the Middle East Studies Program. It is free and open to the public.

Dr. Kavakci will be available from 6:15-6:25 p.m. for informal media interviews in the Drury Diversity Center, located at 803 North Washington Avenue in the Historic Washington Avenue Baptist Church.

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