By Bridget Johnson, your guide to Journalism

Very, very interesting developments out of Turkey today: In the wake of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lead a lifting of the ban on headscarves in universities — and a charge by his party, the AKP, to ban booze in restaurants — the 11-member Constitutional Court has agreed to hear the case charging that the AKP (Justice and Development party) is dragging Turkey away from secularism. Chief prosecutor of the High Court of Appeals Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya wants the party banned for “anti-secular activities” — and such a move wouldn’t be unprecedented, as two other parties got the ax on the same charges in 1998 and 2001.

More from Al-Jazeera:

“Yalcinkaya asked the court to bar 71 people, including Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, and Abdullah Gul, the president, from politics for five years.


The judges on Monday ruled in a majority vote that Gul, who left the AKP when he was elected head of state in August, should be included in the trial.


The Justice and Development party has 330 seats in the 550-seat parliament, and its members could regroup under the banner of a new party to lead the government if the AKP is shut down.


The party was founded in 2001 as an offshoot of a now-banned Islamist movement, but it has repeatedly pledged commitment to the secular system and embraced Turkey’s European Union membership bid.


The prosecutor argued that moves such as the abolition of a bar on headscarves in universities last month and an alcohol ban in restaurants run by AKP municipalities indicate the party’s aim to establish a state based on Sharia law.


‘All actions and rhetoric of the party are aimed at establishing an Islamist society in which Islamic rules and values have the priority … and then carrying out legal arrangements to move towards Sharia,’ the indictment said.”

The trial is expected to last about six months, one of which the AKP will get to present a defense. What will come forth may split a lot of Turks, but in the end it’s a conversation that Turks need to have. Do you keep a party that has been democratically elected, even if they stray from the country’s strictly secular foundation?

(Photo by Wathiq Khuzaie/Getty Images)