In a 150-page petition to the Constitutional Court, prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya accused the party of “being (the) focal point of anti-secular activities.”
Court head Hasim Kilic told reporters that the prosecutor had asked that 71 party leaders - including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul - be banned from political life for five years.
Gul, who is now considered neutral toward all political parties under the law, previously served as foreign minister in Erdogan’s previous cabinet.
Erdogan and other party leaders held an emergency meeting minutes after the prosecutor’s move to shut down the party was made public.
It will likely be months before the court holds a hearing on Yalcinkaya’s petition.
The indictment cites Erdogan’s efforts to lift the ban on head scarves in universities as evidence of a hidden Islamist agenda, a court official said. He asked not to be named because he was not allowed to release the information.
The indictment could not immediately be made public under Turkish law.
Parliament, where the ruling party has 340 of the 550 seats, voted last month to rescind a decades-old ban on wearing the Islamic head scarf in universities. The legislation is being reviewed by the Constitutional Court.
Erdogan has denied his party has a political agenda, pointing to his promotion of the sweeping reforms that helped Turkey clinch European Union membership talks as evidence.
“Everyone should very carefully assess what Turkey would gain or lose due to an attempt like this against a ruling party with such majority,” Gul told reporters.
In 1997, the court ruled for the closure of premier Necmettin Erbakan’s Welfare Party, on grounds that it was engaged in anti-secular activity.
