Turkey’s top court said yesterday that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and key members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had been involved in anti-secular activities, a move likely to renew political tensions in the EU candidate country.
The Constitutional Court, Turkey’s highest judicial body, was setting out the reasons for a July ruling in which it decided not to close the AKP for Islamist activities but instead fined it for undermining Turkey’s secular principles.
“It needs to be accepted that the party became a focus of anti-secular activities due to its move to change some articles of the Turkish Constitution,” the court said, referring to an AKP-driven attempt to lift a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves at universities.
In a setback to the Islamist-rooted AKP, the constitutional court in June overturned an amendment to lift the restriction, saying it violated Turkey’s secular constitution.
The court’s unexpectedly harsh criticism against Erdogan, who remains Turkey’s most popular politician according to recent opinion polls, is likely to renew tensions in Turkey at a time when it is fighting to limit the impact of a global financial crisis.
Turkey’s top court also found that, among others, Education Minister Huseyin Celik was involved in anti-secular activities.
The constitutional court imposed financial penalties on the party in July but dismissed the prosecutor’s case to have the AKP closed down and to bar Erdogan and other leading members from party activity for five years.
The AKP has been locked in a battle with Turkey’s powerful secularist establishment, including judges and army generals, since it first came to power in 2002. Secularists say the party is seeking to bring religion back to public life, contrary to the Constitution.
The AKP, which won a sweeping re-election last year, denies it has any Islamist agenda.
The ruling, published in the online edition of the official gazette, outlined the arguments on which the court based its decision in July.
Religious matters have been “turned into central issues in politics at a scale leading to social divisions and tensions” and people’s religious feelings have been “instrumentalized for pure political aims,” the document said.
Such policies “could undeniably ... hamper the functioning of democracy,” it said.
The court, however, stressed the AKP had also undertaken far-reaching reforms to improve democratic freedoms and human rights and advance Turkey’s bid to join the EU.
“It is obvious the party has used the powers of government to bring the country in line with the standards of modern Western democracies,” it said.
The court decided to strip the party of half of the state funds it was entitled to this year, it said.
The AKP narrowly survived the case with six of the 11 judges voting in favor of a ban, just one short of the seven required to outlaw the party.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS