President says he selected a party’s candidates

Up to now he has been criticizing the programs of the opposition parties. He was trying to reply to opposition leaders but doing so within an artificial “impartiality show.” 

But with the words above, for the first time he personally admitted that he picked the deputy candidates of the ruling party himself. 

Just like a party leader, he said, “We did not nominate a fake mufti in Diyarbakır or a gay candidate in Eskişehir.” 

That’s how we learned it from him. 

He has sworn on his honor to be impartial, as a requirement of the constitution. This may not have a meaning for him, but it does have a meaning for us.

We want a president who is loyal to his oath, who will not cast doubts on his honor. That’s all we want.

On the same day, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu delivered a speech in Siirt. He also said, “the HDP is nominating muftis in the southeast while it is nominating atheists in the west.”

We can derive from this that the speeches of the president and the prime minister are written by the same crew. 

This means that the theme of the day was to center on the HDP’s mufti, atheist and gay candidates. Both formed the same sentences with different words; both effectively rephrased the same content.

What is wrong with the nomination of muftis, atheists or gays? Are they not also citizens of this country? Do they not have the right to elect and be elected? 

Those who once campaigned against a model for saying on TV that her vote and the vote of the shepherd in the mountain could not be regarded equal are now trying to do politics over the personal identities and personal preferences of candidates.


Atheists do not behead innocent people 


Erdoğan does not miss any opportunity to slam the HDP. Before criticizing it for nominating a gay candidate, he earlier said it was full of Zoroastrians and atheists. 

I don’t know how many Zoroastrians, atheists or gay people there are in Turkey. But I know that a person is not a bad person just because they are Zoroastrian, atheist or homosexual.

The rate of bad people within the Zoroastrian religion, atheists or homosexuals is probably the same as the rate of bad people across the whole of society. The rate of perjurers is probably also the same. 

At least we know that they do not tie bombs to their bodies, enter mosques and blow themselves up. But we know there are such Muslims. At least we know that they do not have any militants within them who kidnap underage girls and women and sell them in the slave market. We know that they do not force others to become homosexuals, Zoroastrians or atheists, and they do not behead those who reject their beliefs. 

The rate of atheists, Zoroastrians or gays involved in corruption and bribery with their children, is probably no higher than the rate of Muslims who do the same. 

Freedom of belief is a freedom enabling everybody to live together in peace. It is as natural and normal for one to believe in one of the monotheistic religions as being an atheist. If people want, they can be Zoroastrian or Buddhist. This is called the concept of freedom of belief.