The real turning point for the religious conservative movement was the military's "soft-coup" in 1997, pushing the Islamist Welfare Party (Refah) out of power, followed by the party's closure in 1998 by the Kemalist allied constitutional court for violating the principles of secularism.
Prava prekretnica za pokret religioznih konzervativaca bio je "meki vojni udar" 1997. godine, kojim je islamistička Stranka blagostanja (Refah) otjerana s vlasti, nakon čega ju je 1998. godine zabranio ustavni sud, saveznik kemalista, zato što je narušila načela sekularizma.