‘Religious freedoms in Turkey curbed by hard-line secularism’

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom questions a Constitutional Court decision to overrule a constitutional amendment to let women wear Islamic headscarves at universities that was passed by a wide majority in Parliament.

A report presented to US President Barack Obama has added Turkey to a watch list of countries where people's right to worship as they please or not to worship at all are at risk.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said Turkey's problem was its interpretation of secularism, which has "resulted in violations of religious freedom for many of the country's citizens, including members of majority and, especially, minority religious communities." The report questioned the Constitutional Court's decision to overrule a constitutional amendment to let women wear Islamic headscarves at universities that was passed by a wide majority in Parliament.
Despite the government's efforts to lift the long-standing ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities by amending the Constitution in 2008, the Constitutional Court annulled the legislation and the ban remains in effect. In the same period, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was faced with a closure case filed by Supreme Court of Appeals' Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalçınkaya mainly due to its move to lift the headscarf ban.
The US report is the most extensive of its kind in the commission's 10-year history, documenting serious abuses of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief around the world. Besides Turkey, the commission added Russia, Laos, Somalia, Tajikistan, Venezuela and Indonesia to its list, increasing the number of countries "requiring close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the governments" to 11. Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba and Egypt had already been placed on the list last year.
The commission also criticized Turkish state policies refusing to recognize religious minorities as legal entities and denying non-Muslim communities' legal and religious rights, such as the right to own and maintain property, train religious clergy and offer religious education. However, the report is particularly significant because it also notes that the religious rights and freedoms of the country's religious majority, Sunni Muslims, are not respected, either. The European Union, in particular, has received harsh criticism from civil society for continuously ignoring the situation of Muslims in Turkey in annual progress reports that have been prepared by the European Commission since 1998. EU officials have on many occasions told the Turkish press that they are not to mention the headscarf issue, for example, in their progress reports on human rights in Turkey because there is no consensus in Europe on the matter.
At the start of April, the US commission wrote President Obama, urging him to raise the issue of religious freedom during his trip to Turkey, which took place on April 6-7. Obama met with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as well as the leaders of political parties represented in Parliament during his two-day visit to the country.
Praising the role played by civil society, the media and political parties in softening the state's strict understanding of secularism and pushing for religious freedoms for all, the commission's work, nevertheless, stressed the state's poor understanding of religious rights. The report also cited the US State Department's report on religious freedom for 2008. In that report, it was stated that "the government of Turkey generally respected religious freedom in practice; however, the government imposes limitations on Islamic and other religious groups and significant restrictions on Islamic religious expression in government offices and state-run institutions, including universities, for the stated reason of preserving the secular state."
Several other countries were reprimanded in the report, too. In Russia, for example, it found objectionable "a new body in the Ministry of Justice with unprecedented powers to control and monitor religious groups" that was established early in 2009. It also decried "increasing violations of religious freedom by state officials, particularly against allegedly 'non-traditional' religious groups and Muslims." In 2007 a Russian court banned Russian translations of the works of Said Nursi, a Turkish Islamic scholar who has inspired hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey with his books collectively known as the "Risale-i Nur."
Aside from the 11 countries on the watch list, there are 13 countries designated as "countries of particular concern" (CPC):
Burma, Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, where "egregious violations of religious freedoms" prevail.
Nigeria qualified for "particular concern" because its response to violations of religious freedom and sectarian and communal conflicts was "inadequate and ineffectual." It blamed federal, state and local authorities for failing to stop violence that the commission said has killed thousands.
The State Department's official list of countries of particular concern includes only Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan.