Women's Heads

Five months ago, a Turkish court sentenced Nuray Canan Bezirgan, 23, to six months in jail for "obstructing the education of others." Her crime: wearing a head scarf to her college final exams.

In the past two years, more than 25,000 women have been barred from Turkey's college campuses because they refused to remove the head scarves they wear as part of Muslim tradition, according to Turkish human rights groups. Hundreds of government employees have been fired, demoted or transferred for the same reason. And this school year, the government has extended the ban to Islamic religious schools, prompting some Muslim girls to drop out.

The modest head scarf has become the object of one of Turkey's most divisive struggles as the country seeks to join the European Union and the globalized economy

This problem leaves the country straining to balance greater democratic freedoms with preserving a secular state in a region of expanding Islamic influence.