Compulsory religious courses, what now?
Salina Doğan from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) asked the Education Ministry what kind of measures it took following the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) ruling that compulsory religious courses were a rights violation.
Education Minister İsmet Yılmaz answered this question. According to his explanation, the relevant department prepared an action plan to implement the decision and sent it to the ministry.
Then what did the ministry do?
It decided that this required a comprehensive evaluation meeting. It established a working group made up of the Prime Ministry, Justice Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) and academics from different scientific branches to decide how the decision to lift the compulsory religious courses should be implemented.
It’s like a joke, isn’t it?
There is a court decision which should be implemented in Turkey according to the constitution and the ministry forms a working group to implement that decision!
We are noting yet another practice of this government on not recognizing the rule of law.
It is crystal clear what to do after the ruling of the court: You lift the compulsory religious courses.
Those parents who are seeking religious courses will ask for it; those who do not want it won’t sent their children to religious classes. It is a crime to not implement a court decision according to the constitution, to circumvent it in order to avoid implementation: The crime of violating the constitution!
If indeed one day we have an independent judiciary this crime will be put on trial.
Why is the ruling elite full of joy about the Brexit vote?
It looks like the decision of the majority of voters in Britain to leave the European Union has led to joy among our Islamists.
The reason for this sweet joy is not the fact that British Prime Minister Cameron, who said Turkey can only enter the EU in the year 3000, has suffered a defeat.
They are full of joy because they see that there is an environment coming about that could more comfortably save them from the EU anchor.
From the beginning they were not honest on this issue.
The European Union membership target and the issue of democratization were tools to widen their sphere of power and to sideline Turkey’s traditional power centers. And the moment they got what they wanted, they kept complaining about the EU each time they opened their mouths.
In fact, could they have the aim of entering the EU while they are running after establishing an Islamist regime based on one man?
That’s why they are now engulfed by a sweet joy, as they feel the comfort that they can’t be pressured by EU membership.
I have bad news for them. Yes, perhaps the EU project has collapsed, perhaps the bloc is on the verge of dissolving, but its fundamental values will always stand tall, independent of whether the EU survives or not.
Respect to human rights, democracy and freedom of thought will continue to live as fundamental European values and these will continue to be in conflict with the Islamic regime you want to establish.
You may come out of that contention today victorious and humiliate those who defend civilized values. But you are doomed to lose in the long run.
It is impossible to reverse the flow of history.
