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."