Turkey prides itself on its secular political system that was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. On Monday, the country’s top court began deliberations to decide whether the AKP, the current ruling party, should be disbanded.

•What is the controversy in Turkey all about?

For the first time in a fiercely secular Turkey, a closure case has been brought against a governing party with a huge parliamentary majority. The chief prosecutor has charged the current regime with steering the country towards Islamic rule and more than 70 AKP members, including President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could be banned from political activities for five years.

•Why is Islamism seen as unconstitutional in Turkey?

The formation of a secular democracy was one of the most revolutionary changes introduced by Kemal Atatürk.

This new, secular state ideology was to become known as Kemalism, and it is the basis of the democratic Turkish republic. The process was characterised by a struggle between progressive Atatürk’s reform-minded liberal elite and the conservative mass of uneducated, common people. Under Kemalism, Islamic courts and Islamic canon law gave way to a secular law structure based on the Swiss Civil Code.

•Who enforces this secularism?

Since the establishment of the republic, the military has perceived itself as the guardian of Kemalism, and it has intervened in Turkish politics to that end on several occasions. Since the 1960s, more than 20 parties — mostly pro-Islamist or pro-Kurdish — have been shut down by the courts for allegedly posing a threat to ‘secular’ and ‘unitary’ Turkey.

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