Cultural rights proposed for new charter

ISTANBUL

The prominent Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) has presented a draft proposal on culture policies and related issues of discrimination to Parliament’s Constitutional Reconciliation Commission, as part of ongoing efforts to frame a new constitution.

“The state provides and promotes cultural products and services within the framework of a cultural democracy. It ensures and supports their accessibility to everyone both physically and financially, that they are in line with society’s cultural diversity, or adaptable to it, and that they are acceptable for sections of society that have different cultural identities,” read a section .

The proposal, entitled “The Right to Participate in, Access and Contribute to Cultural Life,” went further, stipulating that the state ought to refrain from directly or indirectly hindering people’s right to participate in, access and contribute to cultural life.

“[The state] enacts every kind of legal, administrative, judicial and financial measure to prevent third persons from hindering this right and for the purpose of its implementation in the fullest sense,” it read.
IKSV also propounded a supplement on discrimination to the article concerning people’s equality before the law. The supplement called on the state to take every measure to prevent the propagation of national, racial or religious hatred that may lead to discrimination based on cultural identity.

“For this reason, [the state] executes public campaigns through the media, education institutions and other means to eliminate every kind of prejudice that individuals and communities are subjected to in consequence of their cultural identities,” read the supplement.