President Erdoğan slams CHP over MPs remarks on headscarves

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) after a lawmaker said he is uncomfortable with seeing judges wear headscarves in court, describing the main opposition’s mindset as “fascist.”

“This person is not living in this age. He lives in the past. This is unfortunately today’s reflection of the CHP’s fascist understanding as it had in the past,” Erdoğan told reporters after his Friday prayers in Istanbul on Jan. 1.

CHP MP Fikri Sağlar, and a former culture minister, had said that he feels uncomfortable seeing female judges wearing head scarves in courts. The CHP’s spokesmen clarified that Sağlar’s views do not represent the main opposition’s official stance on the matter.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the CHP’s chairman, also denied Sağlar’s views, saying the CHP is not interested in how women dress in their daily lives, at work and even in courts.

Erdoğan recalled that young university students were denied their right to education just because they wore head scarves until his party came to power in the early 2000s, saying, “From the perspectives of democracy and freedom of belief, trying to judge people by their outfits is unexplainable. What kind of an understanding is this?”

“Messing around with head scarves is not meaningful. They will see judges, prosecutors, police officers [wearing head scarves] in every institution of this country,” he added.

“Today we have covered [female] lawmakers in parliament. Do you see all these, Mr. Fikri? We will further improve the situation, but you have remained outdated.”