Turkey Police Fire Tear Gas at Religious Constitution Protest
Turkish police on Tuesday fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators who had gathered outside parliament to protest a call for the country to adopt a religious constitution.
Police broke up a group of more than 100 protesters, preventing them from making a press declaration outside the parliament in Ankara, an AFP photographer reported.
The group chanted the slogan "Turkey will remain secular".
Several protesters were detained by police, the photographer reported. Similar protests were also expected in other cities.
Parliament speaker Ismail Kahraman said Monday the predominantly Muslim country "must have a religious constitution", adding to concerns of creeping Islamization under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
"Why should we be in a situation where we are in retreat from religion?" he said.
But the head of parliament's constitution commission, AKP member Mustafa Sentop, said no discussions were under way to remove secularism from the constitution.
The speaker was "not speaking on behalf of his party," he said.
The leader of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said a secular constitution was essential to guarantee freedom of religion.
"Secularism is a guarantor of all faiths. It means freedom of religion and conscience".
"Look at the Middle East. You still haven't learnt the lesson," he said in comments addressed to Kahraman.
"Secularism also means religion not being exploited politically," he said.
The speaker's comments were booed by MPs from the CHP, the party founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who transformed the former Ottoman Empire into a secular nation-state, separating Islamic law from secular law.
Since the AKP's re-election in November, the government has said it wants to revamp Turkey's 1982 constitution, drafted by the military junta which took power after a 1980 coup.
Several attempts so far have fallen flat -- with opposition parties rejecting a move which would give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping powers.
Over the past two years, the government has lifted bans on women and girls wearing the Islamic headscarf in schools and civil service.
It has also limited alcohol sales and made efforts to ban mixed-sex dorms at state universities.
Source: Agence France Presse
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