Amid a flurry of well-documented cases against Muslims practicing their faith, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan renewed the pledge of his successive governments: intolerance against Islamophobia in the country. Erdoğan, who rode a wave of popularity in the period after the notorious 1997 coup which primarily targeted conservative people, was speaking at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Ankara on Thursday where three more mayors joined the party.
A rally in northern Türkiye against a ceremony for graduates of Qur’an classes organized by local branch of Presidency of Religious Affairs, social media reaction to girls covering their heads at an event in line with their Muslim faith and a man captured on camera while insulting two headscarf-wearing women were latest instances in a week of anti-Muslim sentiment in the country. A woman’s social media call for “killing of headscarf-wearing women” further exacerbated the situation. In most cases, criminal investigations were launched against those involved, on charges of insulting the public values.
“Avoiding tension and polarization does not mean that we will remain indifferent when the rights and laws of our people are violated. We were also entrusted with authority to defend the dignity of our brothers and sisters whose rights had been postponed for years and who were pushed aside in their own homeland. We received this mandate to ensure that those who suffered under the oppression of the coup plotters during the February 28 (1997) process would not be subjected to the same tyranny again. We did not allow an arrogant minority to impose its lifestyle on others. We did not tolerate Jacobins interfering with our people's beliefs,” he said.
