The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Ankara

Turkey's parliament voted Saturday to lift a ban on Islamic headscarves at universities, handing victory to the Islamist-rooted ruling party as tens of thousands protested the deeply controversial move.

The constitutional reform package tabled by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) received 411 'yes' votes in the 550-seat house, parliament speaker Koksal Toptan said.

The new legislation, which was backed by the opposition Nationalist Action Party, needed 367 votes to pass.

As parliament was voting, tens of thousands of people waving Turkish flags and carrying pictures of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, packed a square in downtown Ankara to voice their opposition.

Secularists -- among them the army, the judiciary and academics -- see the headscarf as a symbol of defiance against the strict separation of state and religion, a basic tenet of the mainly Muslim country.

"Turkey is secular and will remain secular," shouted the protestors, among them many women, including some wearing headscarves.

"What is being done today in parliament is to eliminate the republican regime and replace it with bigotry," Gokhan Gunaydin, from the organising committee, told the crowd to loud applause.