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One of only a handful of women in the 550-member body, the Elliott School of International Affairs professor expected some opposition from her fellow parliamentarians, but she wasn't prepared for everything that happened. She recalled the prime minister pointing at her and saying, "Put this woman in her place."
The members successfully blocked Kavakci from taking her oath, and within 11 days of the incident, Kavakci was stripped of her citizenship, banned from political activity until June 2006 and charged with instigating hatred.
What offended the members of Parliament, however, was not her gender. It was her refusal to remove her hijab, or headscarf, which they considered a challenge to Turkish secularism, she said.
The state's westernization policy began as a movement to separate mosque and state, but has become a form "secular fundamentalism," said Kavakci, 37, who has worn a hijab for 20 years. Turkey is about 99 percent Muslim.
"The state intervenes with religion so much so that (secularism) becomes a state religion," Kavakci said. "It's state-created Turkish Islam."
Turkey bans federal employees and public school students up to the university level from wearing a hijab, said Kavakci, who was forced to quit studying medicine at the University of Ankara in 1988 for refusing to take off her hijab. The ban began in the 1980s as a provision to regulate the dress code of federal employees.
Kavakci's book "Scarfless Democracy" has been published in Turkish and is awaiting English translation. She has become an activist trying to "raise consciousness" about the hijab ban that has spread to countries such as Belgium, France and Tunisia.
In March 2005, Kavakci testified before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that Turkey's ban on the hijab violates the international treaties Turkey has signed.
Kavakci is also bringing suit against the Turkish government in the European Court of Human Rights for depriving her of her right to serve in Parliament and for denying her constituency the right to representation, she said. Kavakci is awaiting the court's ruling, which is expected in the coming months.
