Islam is the largest religion in Turkey, with about 96.4% citizens are muslin.
Also, there are other religions in Turkey. Besides Islam, Christianity and Judaism are the two most largest religion in Turkey. Turkey has numerous important sites for Judaism and Christianity, being one of the birth places of the latter.
In fact, Turkey is officially a secular country with no official religion. However, Islam covers almost all people in the country. This because even though the politics say Turkey is secular, currently all public schools from elementary to high school hold mandatory religion classes which only focus on the Sunni sect of Islam. In these classes, students are required to learn prayers and other religious practices about Islam. Thus, although Turkey is officially a secular state, the teaching of religious practices in public grade schools has been controversial; because the system makes the country looks like an Islam country rather than an secular one.
On the other hand, Turkey's government does do something to maintain its free religion. As an example, Jew's situation in Turkey is better than in other Islam countries. In Turkey, Jews operate their own schools, hospitals, welfare institutions and other stuffs.Though Turkey has attacking to Jews, such as the attacks by extremists on synagogues in 2003, the government still tries to give them rights and protection.
The protection is not only given to Jews. Roman Catholics have also occasionally been subjected to violent societal attacks.For instance, an Italian Catholic priest was shot to death in this church in Trabzon by a 16 years old boy. Turkey's government punished him strongly and sent him to prison for 19 years.
So as a secular country with over 90% people are muslin, I think Turkey at least try to protect its citizens and their freedom of faith. However, the conflict of religions in the Middle East has lasted for a really long time. It won't gone as soon as we ask it to disappear, but still the government is trying to deal with it. Nevertheless, its a good start to bring a stable lives to the citizen.
As far as i know about turkey is that it's a secular country, but recently after the prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan came into the country government he changed a lot of rules. Muslims in turkey weren't able to hear the call to prayer since 1978 because it was prohibited and it consider to be a penalty, but in the past few years this was vanished and the call of prayers was back. women weren't able to wear their scarfs on their heads if they are in the universities for example, but everything changed now. Also as you mentioned that in schools they teach the students Sunni Islam, which is a step toward accepting religions.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned in your post that Turkey has a respect to the religions in the past years i will say i have doubt in that. Since 90% percent of the country are muslims at least their needs when it come to their religion must be respected. I don't a background about turkey and other religions such as christianity and judaism so that is why i didn't mention anything about it.
Do you think Turkey now is a really good example for other countries especially after the change that happened to the country?
I think Laila's comment is important, and accurate about Turkey's respect for other religions. In 1915 under the Ottoman Empire there was a severe massacre of Armenian and Assyrian Christians, that is frequently referred to as 'genocide'. Under the current Turkish government, if that massacre is labeled as 'genocide' by Turkish citizens (of any nationality) they can be put on trial based on Article 301 of the constitution for 'offending Turkishness'.
DeleteMeanwhile a friend of mine of Arab/Kurdish nationality from a place in Turkey where many Christians live told me a story about how his brother was almost refused a job at a telecommunications company until he could prove that he had no Christianity in his bloodlines at all (in otherwords, nobody in his lineage was a convert).