TURKEY: A WOMEN (UNCOVERED MEAT) PARK ONLY

Women-only park plan causes stir in 'secular' Turkey

ISTANBUL - Strong reaction to a plan for a women-only park in Istanbul has focused attention on the divisions between Turkey’s secularists and supporters of the ruling AK Party, which has its roots in political Islam.

Critics of the plan see it as the latest sign that the ruling party is trying to push through an Islamist agenda, but several female voters in the district said on Friday they loved the idea.
News that the AK Party-run municipality of Bagcilar was planning to create a park exclusively for women, reported in the local press this week, prompted a fierce reaction among secular Turks who say the party is trying to give Islam a greater role in public life.

The controversy reached parliament on Thursday, when opposition CHP lawmaker Bihlun Tamayligil asked the assembly: ”Can you reconcile the principles of the Republic with applying the segregation of men and women?” according to local media.

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Municipalities run by the AK Party caused outrage in some quarters last year by banning alcohol in restaurants they run. Islam bans alcoholic drinks. The party also wants to lift a ban on women wearing headscarves in official buildings.

Tension between the two sides is likely to increase as the November 2007 general election draws nearer.

“They’re talking about (protecting women from) sexual harassment but this is an Islamist agenda ... It’s very obviously an application of harem-selamlik (separating men and women),” Pinar Ilkkaracan, founder of the NGO Women for Women’s Human Rights, told Reuters.

In some parts of Istanbul skimpily clad women hop between nightclubs, but in Bagcilar, where nearly all the women on the street wear headscarves, the AK Party seems to be in tune with voters -- at least with a handful of local women.

“It’s good, I hope it happens. It’d be more comfortable,” 21-year-old textile worker Nurgul Karayanik told Reuters in the neighbourhood. “Men make comments, leer at women a lot in Turkey,” she said.

Some were puzzled by other women’s opposition to the plan.

“There are women who don’t go out because of men ... because (they think) it’s sinful. And men make comments, it’s uncomfortable,” said 49-year-old Muteber Kucukkaraca.

Local Mayor Feyzullah Kiyiklik, angered by the controversy, declined to give any details.

“We haven’t finished the park yet, we haven’t opened it, no decision has been taken ... but if you are interested, the day we open our park you could also come, inshallah,” he told Reuters.


The European Union is negotiating with Turkey to permit them entry into the E.U....It is patently obvious that the European Union has a deathwish because to allow a nation of 70 million people, 99.8% moslem, to join will lead to nothing else but the complete islamization of Europe and at that point it will truly be Eurabia...

What is even more amazing is why the United States of America and especially the Bush White House is so hot to trot in trying to push this disaster on the West?!?

Hasn't the White House learned anything when Turkey refused U.S. troops entry in order for them to enter Iraq through the north?!?

Aren't U.S. intelligence agencies paying attention to the inexorable march of a secular Turkey (a Turkey set up by Ataturk & kept secular by a vigilant military) to a Turkey that is becoming more and more like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under Taliban rule?!?

Doesn't the U.S. government realize that it will be Americans dying when the time comes to once again fight on European soil in order to free Westerners from their voluntary dhimmification, a dhimmification that was encouraged by the United States of America?!?!?!?!?

What is our problem?!?


Pertinent Links:

1) Women-only park plan causes stir in 'secular' Turkey

2) Turkey - CIA Factbook