The Paradox of Religion In Erdogan’s Turkey
Ihsan Dagi of Zaman asks whether conservatives are moving to the center; the answer is just that power is changing hands in Turkey, but not in a democratic way, writes Tulin Daloglu.
In a country where there seems to be a mosque on almost every corner, it sounds overblown to claim that pious Muslims are oppressed in Turkey. But since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power over a decade ago, it has been the party line to accuse Kemalist ideology as being Islamophobic and responsible for oppressing and discriminating against practicing Muslims in state, business, and personal affairs.
For the AKP, it was the "state" that had an active policy against freedom of religion in Turkey for followers of Sunni Islam.
