Turkey's Elephant in the Room: Religious Freedom

Performing ablution before prayers outside the 17th century mosque in Istanbul, where the state exerts total control over Islam through its Religious Affairs Department.

By SUSANNE GUSTEN
Published: September 28, 2011

ISTANBUL — With his triumphant tour of the countries of the Arab Spring this month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has managed to set up Turkey on the international stage as a role model for a secular democracy in a Muslim country — as, in his words, “a secular state where all religions are equal.”

The only trouble is that he has yet to make that happen for Turkey.

The relationship between religion and the state, ever the sore spot of Turkish identity, is one of the most explosive issues of the debate on the new constitution that Mr. Erdogan has pledged to give the country in the new legislative term that opens Saturday.

That debate will have to deal with the elephant in the room: the total control that the state exerts over Islam through its Religious Affairs Department, and the lack of a legal status for all other religions in a predominantly Sunni Muslim society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/world/europe/turkeys-elephant-in-the-room-religious-freedom.html

As Christians are among the affected. We somehow have to pay for the actions of those who came thousands or hundreds of years before us.

Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each.