Turkey changes, by the numbers

On Friday, Turkey's chief prosecutor filed a case in the Constitutional Court to shut down the Justice and Development Party, which controls the national government, and ban the president, prime minister and senior party officials from politics for five years. The party -- known by its Turkish initials AKP -- is accused of threatening Turkey's secular democracy, among other things, by using religion as a criterion in making appointments to top bureaucratic posts.

The tensions have been building for some time. Last spring, millions took to the streets to protest the AKP's presidential candidate, an observant Muslim. The military even threatened to intervene to preserve secular rule. Then, last month, the AKP government lifted Turkey's long-standing ban on female college students wearing Islamic head scarves to class, sparking further debate about the country's identity and future.