Turkey’s Open Secret: Fake Secularism

by Burak Bekdil
The Gatestone Institute
December 3, 2019

„In theory, Turkey has a secular regime. Its constitution dictates the state and its institutions to be at equal distance to every faith, including no faith. In theory, discrimination based on religious belief is a criminal offense. Turkey’s Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he is at equal distance to every faith, and that he is against „religious nationalism“, and he told the media at the White House on November 13 that Turkey would restore damaged churches in Syria.
In reality, however, Erdoğan and his Islamist governance stand as an excellent example to illustrate how political Islam cannot be secular.
The 2019 annual report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) concluded that the Turkish government continues to discriminate against the minority Alevi community, and interfere in the affairs of what remains of the country’s historic Armenian and Greek Orthodox populations.“ (…)

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