Thursday, March 23, 2006

A question of religion

"Whether or not the identity card should continue to carry a section stating the holder's religion has created a controversy within the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party.

Dr. Nevzat Yalcintas, the Istanbul deputy of the ruling party, expressed concern that the section on religion would be abolished in the new identity cards and asked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu whether this would be the case.

Yalcintas said that removing the part defining the person's religion would be equal to depriving the holder of his religious identity, particularly when the majority religion in the country is Islam.

"There are certain things we can't agree to just because we are approaching the European Union. We have to guard our own values," he said.

He warned that Turkey would be full of missionaries once it becomes a member of the European Union and thus Turkish families would need to make even more efforts to maintain their Muslim identity."
The New Anatolian

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