"More than 25,000 people marched in defence of secularism in mainly Muslim Turkey yesterday, shocked after the killing of a leading judge by a gunman said to be driven by religious fervour.Read the rest here.
Angry crowds outside the Ankara mosque where the funeral of slain judge Mustafa Ozbilgin was being held pushed government ministers on their way inside, and outside the country's top administrative court bystanders booed the foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, and called for the government's resignation.
Four more people were detained in connection with the killing on Wednesday, when a lawyer stormed into a chamber of the top court, shooting Mr Ozbilgin dead and injuring four others while shouting that he was a soldier of Allah.
The attack raised tensions between the secular establishment and the religious-minded government and sparked an outpouring of nationalist sentiment across the Turkish capital.
Judges led thousands of people to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's mausoleum to pay homage to the republic's founder and mark their support for secularism."
"It has been the misfortune of this age, that everything is to be discussed, as if the constitution of our country were to be always a subject rather of altercation than enjoyment." - Edmund Burke anticipates the Neverendum
Friday, May 19, 2006
Pro-secular Turkish protests
Following the murder of a secular judge mentioned in the post below, there have been large demonstrations in Turkey:
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