Woman, 92, Cleared Over Linking Head Scarves to Sex Rites

By Susan Fraser
The Scotsman

Thursday 02 November 2006

Ankara - A Turkish court yesterday acquitted a 92-year-old archaeologist for claiming that Islamic-style head scarves were first worn more than 5,000 years ago by priestesses initiating young men into sex.

In a trial that lasted less than an hour, the court in Istanbul acquitted Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, an expert on the Sumerian civilisation of Mesopotomia of around the third millennium BC, of insulting religious feelings. The diminutive, pro-secular academic, who was born in 1914 - the waning years of the Ottoman Empire - was the latest person to go on trial for expressing her views, despite intense European Union pressure on Turkey to expand freedom of expression.

She joins a long list of writers, journalists and academics who have been prosecuted, including this year's Nobel prize-winner, Orhan Pamuk, and the novelist Elif Shafak.

Charges of insulting Turkishness against Mr Pamuk were dropped over a technicality this year, while Ms Shafak was acquitted. They were tried under Turkey's infamous Article 301, which sets out punishment for insulting the Turkish Republic, its officials, or "Turkishness". Ms Cig was accused of inciting hatred by insulting people based on their religion.

Ms Cig faced 18 months in prison had she been convicted.

The trial came a week before an EU report assessing Turkey's progress towards membership. It is expected to chide the country for slipping in its reform programme and not acting to change laws that have been used to curb freedoms - in violation of EU human rights standards.

Ms Cig's trial was initiated by an Islamic lawyer, who was offended by claims made in her recently published political work, My Reactions as a Citizen, in which she says that head scarves date back to Sumerian times, when veils were worn by priestesses who engaged in sex to distinguish themselves from other priestesses. Ms Cig told the court: "I am a woman of science ... I never insulted anyone." Some 25 lawyers crammed into the small courtroom to defend her.

In what some said was a move to avoid endangering Turkey's EU bid, the prosecution supported dropping the charge, saying Ms Cig's actions had not "endangered public safety".

The judges then acquitted Ms Cig and her publisher, Ismet Ogutucu, of the Kaynak publishing house. Secular groups cheered and applauded the decision, with one supporter shouting: "Live for 1,000 years."

Ms Cig, who retired in 1972 and has written 13 books, made headlines this year when she wrote to Emine Erdogan, asking the Turkish first lady to remove her head scarf and set an example to women in the predominantly Muslim and secular country.

Turkey has strict regulations that bar head scarves in schools and public offices. An increasing number of women, however, are veiling themselves.

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