Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Turkey's AKP Files Defense In Constitutional Court
Yesterday Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted a 98-page defense response (full text) to Turkey's Constitutional Court in the prosecution charging it with undermining the secular principles enshrined in Turkey's Constitution. (See prior posting.) According to Today's Zaman , the defense statement argues that the prosecutor misunderstands the concepts of democracy and secularism. According to AKP, the indictment treats secularism as a philosophy of life, while it should be defined as "a political principle which accepts different religions and faiths as a sociological reality and aims at maintaining peaceful co-existence between them."