Call for religious constitution
Turkey parliament speaker‘s demand draws flak, protests
ISTANBUL/ANKARA — A call by Turkey’s parliament speaker for a new constitution to drop references to secularism provoked opposition condemnation and a brief street protest on Tuesday, potentially undermining government efforts to forge agreement on a new charter.
Speaker Ismail Kahraman said late on Monday that Turkey needed a religious constitution, a proposal which contradicts the modern republic’s founding principles.
His comments and the reaction highlight a schism in Turkish society reaching back to the 1920s when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk forged a secular republic from the ruins of an Ottoman theocracy. He banished Islam from public life, replaced Arabic with Latin script and promoted Western dress and women’s rights.
President Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling AK Party he founded, their roots in political Islam, have
Secularism is the primary principle of social peace ... Secularism is there to ensure that everyone has religious freedom”
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party
tried to restore the role of religion in public life. They have expanded religious education and allowed the head scarf, once banned from state offices, to be worn in colleges and parliament.
The AKP is pushing to replace the existing constitution, which dates back to the period after a 1980 military coup. As speaker, Kahraman is overseeing efforts to draft a new text.
“For one thing, the new constitution should not have secularism,” Kahraman said, according to videos of his speech published by Turkish media. “It needs to discuss religion ... It should not be irreligious, this new constitution, it should be a religious constitution.” Critics fear a new constitution could concentrate too much power in the hands of Erdogan, who wants an executive presidency to replace the current parliamentary system. The government has promised that European standards on human rights will form the basis of the new text.
Mustafa Sentop, a senior AKP member who heads a parliamentary commission on constitutional reform, said a draft text retained the precept of secularism and his party had not even discussed removing it.
But Kahraman’s comments drew criticism from government opponents suspicious of the ruling party’s Islamist ideals. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition and secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), tweeted: “Secularism is the primary principle of social peace ... Secularism is there to ensure that everyone has religious freedom, Ismail Kahraman!”
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said it was not right to open secularism up for debate and called on Kahraman to take back his words.
Ankara police used pepper spray to disperse about 50 demonstrators, including some CHP lawmakers, who gathered outside parliament. Dozens of people were detained.
Nato member Turkey, which aspires to join the European Union, has long been touted by its Western partners as a model secular, democratic nation with a Muslim population.