World Bulletin / News Desk

Following a successful campaign in the Turkish local elections, AK Party's female candidate Fethiye Atli has become one of the first headscarved women in the country's history as a republic to be voted in as a municipal mayor.

Ironically, after the coup that forced former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan to step down on 28 February 1997, Fethiye Atli was fired from her job at the same municipality where she is now due to take on her new duties as mayor.

Having worked as a civil servant for over 10 years, Atli was fired from her job in the year 2000 after ignoring a number of warnings and fines regarding her religious dress code. Eventually, an official from Ankara came and terminated her contract. She tried to appeal to the courts but her appeal was rejected.

She was just one of many women all over Turkey who were forced out of the public sphere due to their choice of clothing amid a crackdown on all open displays of Islamic identity. The ban on the headscarf was officially lifted in late 2013 when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his 'democratization packet'.