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Thousands of secular Turks gather to protest a government plan to ease a headscarf ban at universities. Thousands of secular Turks rallied on Saturday (February 2) against a plan by the government to allow female students to wear the Muslim headscarf at university, a move they say will usher in a stricter form of Islam in Turkey. Parliament is expected to approve next week a constitutional amendment sponsored by the ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, and a nationalist opposition party, aimed at easing a 1989 ban on the headscarf for students in higher education. Secularists fear lifting the ban would lead over time to heavy pressure on uncovered women to wear the Muslim garment. "Turkey is secular and will remain secular," shouted protesters as they waved national flags and banners of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, revered founder of the republic which separated religion and state, at his mausoleum in the capital Ankara. "We do not want to raise our children in an Islamic republic but in Ataturk's republic. That is why we are here" said Fevzi Erkilic wearing a t-shirt with a Turkish flag and Ataturk's picture on it. Turkey's powerful secular establishment, which includes army generals, judges and university rectors, sees the headscarf as a symbol of radical Islam and thus threatening the country's secular order. Turkey is 99 percent Muslim. "We are against turban --headscarf-- not basortusu--- traditional Turkish woman head cover. Our mothers and grandmothers wore this traditional garment but headscarf is a symbol of political Islam that we are against and do not want it in our country," said Nukhet Sazeren, distinguishing the headscarf as a symbol of political Islam, different from traditional women's Turkish head cover. As recently as 1997, Turkey's army generals, acting with public support, ousted a government they deemed too Islamist. Last year's secular rallies against the AK Party's choice of a former Islamist as president sparked an early parliamentary election. Opinion polls suggest a majority of Turks back a relaxation of the headscarf ban in a country of 70 million where some two thirds of women cover their heads. The headscarf debate is central to Turkey's complex identity, as the young democracy struggles to meet the demands of both a pious Muslim population and also a secular, pro-Western elite that sees Islam as backwards. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, which denies any Islamist agenda, has long wanted to lift the ban on the headscarf, saying the issue is a matter of religious and personal freedom, but has been wary not to irk the generals. The decision by the AK Party to push the reform reflects its confidence after it won a sweeping re-election last July. But pressure has intensified this week with university rectors warning that allowing female students to wear the Muslim headscarf at university would provoke campus chaos and street violence and end up destroying the secular state. Secularist professors have also threatened not to allow women into class if they wore the garment. Members of Turkey's judiciary and top businessmen have already slammed the headscarf plan and the main opposition party, the secularist CHP with close ties to the army, has said it will go to the Constitutional Court to block the reform. Under the government plan, the ban on the headscarf would remain for teachers and civil servants. Financial markets are nervously watching the debate. Turkey's powerful military, which views itself as the ultimate guarantor of the secular order, has made clear it is closely watching the debates but has so far refrained from directly commenting on the headscarf proposal.