Merve Kavakçı

Who is Merve Kavakçı?

Merve Safa Kavakçı is Turkish politician, who was elected as a Virtue Party deputy for Istanbul on April 18, 1999.

On May 2, 1999, Kavakçı was precluded from taking her oath in the swear-in ceremony by members of the Democratic Left Party due to her headscarf. Her Turkish citizenship was revoked following the parliament ordeal. Kavakci lost her seat in the parliament in March 2001. The Virtue Party was closed down by the Constitutional Court in June 2001, banning five parliamentarians including Kavakci from running for office for a period of five years.

In 2007, Kavakçı won the legal case when the European Court of Human Rights found that Kavakcı's expulsion from parliament was a violation of human rights. Since then, Kavakçı has been an outspoken critic of Turkey's secularization policy, traveling the globe in support of Muslim women's rights, especially to the hijab. In addition to lecturing at universities throughout Europe and the United States, Kavakçı addressed the 2004 Parliament of the World's Religions in Barcelona. Kavakci also addressed British Parliament House of Lords in London, England. She has lectured and spoke at myriad of American and European Universities including Harvard, Yale, Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Duisburg and Cambridge Universities.