Turkish PM calls professor ‘crap’ after comments about non-praying ‘animals’
KÜTAHYA – Doğan News Agency
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A professor who described people who do not perform Islamic prayers as “animals” on Turkey’s state broadcaster TRT “is crap,” Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said, noting that such remarks were “unacceptable.”“There is nothing to evaluate. Whoever said that is crap. I mean, we know the value of our religion, which is a religion of tolerance, love and brotherhood. Therefore such words can never be accepted. If he uttered such word, he made a huge mistake. Beyond the mistake, he talked nonsense, in short,” Yıldırım told reporters in the inner Aegean province of Kütahya on June 14.
The prime minister also added that someone who uttered such “impertinent words” had no place before Muslims.
During a live broadcast on TRT on June 12, Professor Mustafa Aşkar said Muslims who do not perform Islamic prayers are “animals.”
“Let no one be offended, but I will say it firmly, as the verse says it: Animals do not perform prayers, and those who do not perform prayers are animals,” he said, referring to a Quranic verse on the issue.
Aşkar later apologized for his words after drawing angry reactions from the country’s top religious body, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), as well as a number of politicians.
