Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proffered an olive branch to secular critics by publicly disowning his party’s proposals to curb pornography and encourage school prayer.
The move appeared designed to allay lingering fears of an Islamist state, coming less than two weeks after a court case in which the governing Justice and Development party (AKP) narrowly avoided a ban for allegedly undermining Turkey’s secular system.
Erdogan spoke out after AKP Deputy Chairwoman Edibe Sozen provoked an outcry by publishing a plan to force buyers of pornography to give their details to shopkeepers, who would have been obliged pass them to the authorities.
The bill also included provisions requiring prayer facilities in all state schools, despite constitutional laws demanding the separation of religion and state.
The draft Protection of Youth bill also proposed banning licensed restaurants from admitting unaccompanied minors after 10pm, and would have made it illegal for them to be there after midnight even if accompanied by their parents.
Sozen claimed the bill was based on laws in force in Germany, but withdrew her proposal under protest from secularists who claimed it was further evidence of the AKP’s Islamist “hidden agenda.”
The fallout forced Erdogan, known for his socially conservative views, into an unusually harsh rebuke in which he described Sozen’s proposals as “ill-timed and fatal.”
He urged party discipline at a time when the AKP is under fierce scrutiny for perceived anti-secular tendencies.
“It [the bill] is not the party’s work, but it was perceived as if it belonged to the party,” Erdogan told an AKP meeting.
“Such works should be discussed within the party first. It is an ill-timed and fatal statement. The content is bad,” he said.
“She [Sozen] put the party in a difficult situation. We are going through sensitive times that need caution and ultimate care. This is valid for each one of us. We all need to refrain from any actions or statements that could create new tensions,” the prime minister said.
His comments were later reinforced by an AKP statement, which dismissed Sozen’s proposals as “not in accordance with the party program.”
Sozen’s draft was published just days after the Constitutional Court — Turkey’s highest — effectively put the AKP on probation by depriving it of millions of dollars in state funding, after finding it guilty of being a “focal point of anti-secularism.”
The ruling stopped short of prosecutors’ demands for the party to be shut down and for its senior figures, including Erdogan, to be banned from politics for five years.
Mensur Akgun, an EU program director with Tesev, a Turkish think tank, said: “I don’t think the critics will be satisfied with such a motion from the prime minister.
“He has to show that he favors further liberalization of the country and cares about more than just the rights of the Muslim community,” Akgun said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
OPTIONS: Asked if one potential avenue to a third term was having J.D. Vance run for the top job and then pass the baton to him, Trump said: ‘That’s one,’ among others US President Donald Trump on Sunday that “I’m not joking” about trying to serve a third term, the clearest indication he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029. “There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term
RSS