by MARYAM NAMAZIE
The Rights For All – Turkey (HERKES ICIN AYNI YASA – TURKIYE) affiliated with One Law For All is being established to promote a secular legal system and challenge religion’s increasing role in the judiciary in Turkey.
The campaign will highlight discrimination against women, charges of blasphemy and government “reforms” that aim to weaken Turkish secularism, amongst others. It follows the Gezi protests which began as an environmental protest and developed into a call against Islamism and a defence of secularism.
Cases the campaign will focus on include several rape cases in which the perpetrators have gone unpunished. In Spring 2013, pianist and composer Fazil Say was convicted of 10 months imprisonment for blasphemy and “insulting Islamic values” for posting a Tweet of a poem by Persian poet Omar Khayyam. The government has also stated that a woman who doesn’t wear a headscarf is like a house without curtains and that Turkish women should have three children. The government’s repeated attacks on freethinking journalists, artists and intellectuals will also be highlighted.
Aims and objectives of the campaign:
• One secular law for all citizens living in Turkey regardless of their political ideologies, religion/beliefs, sex and background.
• An end to religious laws and norms in the judicial system, including with regards discrimination against women and blasphemy.
Rights For All, Turkey is affiliated with One Law for All Campaign against Sharia law in Britain.
For more information, please contact: Sinem Koc, sinemkoc15@gmail.com or Maryam Namazie at onelawforall@gmail.com