Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin

Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin (June 20, 1942 – May 17, 2006) was a Turkish supreme court magistrate, who was shot dead in a Turkish Council of State courtroom in Ankara, Turkey on May 17, 2006, by Alparslan Arslan.

Death

The alleged reasoning for the murder of Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin and wounding of four of his fellow judges was that they had previously voted against a Turkish schoolteacher being allowed to wear a traditional Islamic headscarf outside work. One of the judges who was shot, had voted in favour of allowing the teacher to wear a headscarf outside of work, while the other judges who were wounded, voted against. The Turkish press widely condemned the attacks. Also, the former secularist prime minister Bülent Ecevit attended Özbilgin's funeral in spite of his bad health condition. After the funeral, Ecevit had a cerebral hemorrhage and went into a coma.

The shooting represented a rise in tensions between the fundamentalist secular apparatus of state and supporters of religious rights, as well as Islamic fundamentalism.