Conservative paper seeks removal of 'erotic' statue

Hürriyet Daily News

Milli Gazete headline.

A conservative newspaper called for the removal of a statue in the northwestern province of Edirne today on the grounds that it was "erotic." 

Daily Milli Gazete showed a picture of the statue in its headline story along with the title "a statue of bigotry." 

The statue, named "Free and Modern Woman," is of a naked female figure with open arms, flowing hair and holding a piece of cloth in one hand. It was erected by the Edirne branch of Turkish Women's Union in the city's Fatih neighborhood in 2004 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. Milli Gazete blurred out the statue's chest and crotch when printing it.  

The newspaper claimed the union used the statue of the "erotic woman shedding her headscarf" to mock the moral values of Turkish people, calling it an act of "modern bigotry." The newspaper's report said the union "insistently" re-erected the statue even though it had been knocked down by locals several times. 

"Such immoral acts make people ask if that was how they founded the republic. Those who liberated Edirne from occupation were not modern and naked women, they were faithful, moral women,” the paper’s report said.

"Our [Ottoman] ancestors did not offend anyone because of their beliefs in these lands during their reign for 600 years. But now their descendants have become alien to their own country and they try to offend their own people. This act [of erecting the statue], which aims to psychologically pressure faithful, headscarved people, is not becoming of Edirne,” Anatolia Youth Foundation President Abdülhamit İriş was quoted in the report as saying. 

Milli Gazete's report said the erection of the "Free and Modern Woman" was part of a policy to destroy religion.