TEHRAN Supporters of Turkey's banned pro-Islamic Virtue Party look set to find other venues to push their political agenda, with at least two new parties already in embryonic stages, political commentators and the Turkish press said yesterday.

The Turkish Constitutional Court banned the Islamic party on Friday, saying its activities were anti-secular.

Experts believe that the party was banned based on insufficient evidence. This raises questions about Turkish democracy. According to these experts, the Turkish government is taking these steps to avoid any possible loss of power.

The secular government of Turkey has been looking forward to joining the European Union and has made efforts to establish democratic institutions in order to achieve their goal of EU membership.

However, Turkey, by banning Virtue, has nullified the vote of eight million Turkish people who voted for Virtue, and this could convey the message that Turkey has a new definition for "democracy". This decision once again proves that Turkey is not tolerant enough to accommodate an opposition political party, despite its claims to be so.

Virtue is the fourth Turkish Islamist party to be banned for so-called "unlawful" activities. In the past, the Turkish secularists have not achieved their goals after banning Islamist parties, since two parties or groups often emerge out of the banned party.

The Turkish government should reflect on the fact that banning popular parties will only tarnish its own image in the eyes of the Turkish nation and the international community. Turkey should revise its definition of democracy, since its future ties with the EU could be jeopardized if it continues to shut down popular opposition parties.

On Friday, wire copies quoted a Virtue leader, Abdullah Gul, as saying that all necessary preparations have been made for the formation of a new party, which would make itself known in the near future.

According to local press reports, Tayyip Erdogan, the former mayor of Istanbul, has emerged as a possible leader of one new party and Necmettin Erbakan, the Welfare (Refah) Party's former leader, is planning to form another party.

"One, two, even three parties will soon be created," the center-right newspaper *** Milliyet *** predicted, adding "and in two years we will be at the same point: Waiting for a verdict from the Constitutional Court."

The Turkish press has dubbed the new party expected to be unveiled by Erdogan as the Party of the Virtuous and that of Erbakan as the Party of Happiness.

Erbakan, who was briefly prime minister between 1996 and 1997, is suspected of leading the Virtue Party from the sidelines after his previous party -- the Welfare Party -- was closed down and he was banned from politics.

In another display of democracy Turkish police on Sunday arrested 25 relatives and friends of Turkish prison inmates who were demonstrating in central Istanbul against controversial new Turkish prisons, the Anatolian News Agency reported.

The demonstrators gathered in the center of Istanbul's European quarter to protest reforms that have put prisoners at three jails in cells for up to three people, rather than in old-style jails with dormitories for inmates.

The prisons have sparked a hunger strike among hundreds of inmates that has claimed 24 lives since March, and outrage at what opponents say are severe conditions that will increase chances of mistreatment by prison guards.

Police prevented the protestors from reading a written statement and took them into custody, Anatolian said.