"Turkey grants student amnesties
By Jonny Dymond
BBC news correspondent in Istanbul
Both sides claim the other uses the headscarf as a political symbol
The Turkish parliament has granted an amnesty to 677,000 men and women who have been expelled from university over the past five years.
The amnesty includes those expelled from university because their refusal to remove the Islamic headscarf.
However, the regulation restricting the scarf remains in place.
Turkey maintains a division between religion and state which includes a ban on the headscarf in universities and the civil service.
Only a small minority of those expelled from Turkish universities over the last five years fell foul of the headscarf ban, but such is the controversy over it that the ban dominated debate before the amnesty issue came to parliament. "
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