As a Muslim woman who has traveled to several “Islamic” countries, I can’t imagine being able to practice my religion anywhere as freely or as comfortably as I can right here – in the United States. Apparently, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agrees that the freedom of religion that exists in the U.S. was challenged in his own secular country of Turkey.
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal reports:
When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited us in New York a few years ago, he said his daughters chose to study in the U.S. in part because it was illegal to wear head scarves at Turkish universities. Saturday, Turkey’s Parliament voted to lift that ban.
Our own view is that lifting the ban is a sign of Turkey’s democratic maturity. Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamic roots, rightly argued that the restriction violated freedom of religion.
The AKP, in power since 2002, has already demonstrated that a government with Islamist roots can coexist with democracy and free markets. Our hope is that lifting the ban on head scarves is another move toward a modern Muslim state.
Read more here.