Both Muslims and Christians suffer under Turkey's secular government. Under democracy, a nation needs to respect the religious expression of its citizens. This government fears Muslim extremists taking over so they suppress the religious expression of the Muslims and control many aspects of their faith, such as dictating who can write the sermons. A government should not have that much control. But suppressing the religious expression of the Muslims will hurt the government in the long run because it will encourage a stronger adherence to Muslim traditions and a desire to rebel against the yoke of oppression.
Atop a pine-covered hill on this island in the Sea of Marmara, Metropolitan Apostolos, a gray-haired Greek Orthodox bishop, tended the empty, echoing halls of a seminary shuttered for 35 years by government order, dreaming of the day it will reopen to replenish the dwindling ranks of the clergy in Turkey.And apparently their control doesn't seem to be working. Or do you think that's part of a more moderate Islam?
An hour's ferry ride away, Fatma Saglam, an observant Muslim, unwrapped her headscarf every morning and walks bareheaded into her bustling Istanbul university, reluctantly choosing education over piety because the Turkish state policy forbids wearing the traditional religious headcovering on campus.
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The Turkish state was founded in 1923 on the principle of subordinating religion to secular nationalism. State policies -- from banning headscarves in government buildings to closing private religious schools -- regulate all aspects of religion in an effort to concentrate the secular government's power.
For Muslims, the government trains, hires, and fires imams. For the tiny Christian and Jewish minorities, the government has used a web of regulations to close and confiscate places of worship, and doesn't allow individuals or institutions to inherit property.
Turkey doesn't define secularism the way many democracies do, as separation of church and state..."Instead, it's state control over religion,"
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With Turkey under pressure from Europe to acknowledge past and present repression of Christian minorities, and facing growing domestic opposition from Islamist political parties, the state's curbs on religions freedom make it harder for Turkey to present itself as a model democracy bridging Europe and the majority-Muslim world.
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For the approximately 99 percent of Turks who are Muslim, all aspects of religious expression are regulated by the Diyanet, the religious affairs ministry. Sermons are supposed to be written by imams higher up in the ministry bureaucracy, although some mosques have bucked the rule lately.
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She knows some women who for go a university education rather than expose their hair in what they consider a violation of Muslim practice. But, she said, "If we don't study, they will think, 'You wear a scarf and you don't have a brain.' "
I think this also helps us to understand the trial of the two Christians in Turkey.
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