Erdogan proposes to hold a referendum on the right to wear a veil in Turkey

Oct. 22 () –

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised this Saturday the possibility of holding a referendum on the right to wear a veil after the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), proposed a vote in the same direction. .

“The CHP leader (Kemal Kilicdaroglu) has reopened the veil debate, long forgotten. May the freedom to wear the veil be raised to a constitutional level to lift a weight from the hearts of our girls and sisters. We have prepared a constitutional amendment. We are going to send it to Parliament,” Erdogan said during an act in the province of Malatya, in the east of the country, according to the Turkish news portal Duvar.

“We have prepared a constitutional amendment against the imposition of deviationist movements and it is another vital issue. If the proposal sent to Parliament is accepted, it will be a great advance for Turkey. If not, we will continue to fight for our country to have a secular and liberal Constitution. after the elections. Let them vote in a referendum. Let the nation decide,” he added.

Kilicdaroglu has responded to Erdogan on Twitter. “What’s going on? Are you going to play a fake Orbán, Erdogan? This is Turkey, not Hungary. Support the bill, not the referendum. If you don’t run away, this issue can be resolved (…) Do you have the value?”, has raised.

In April, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, promoted the holding of a referendum to ban workshops on sexual orientation in schools, alleging the destruction of the traditional family. The vote was not valid because it did not reach 50 percent of the census.

On October 5, Erdogan proposed a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to wear a veil for women in response to the CHP proposal of October 4.

Erdogan has assured that the amendment will be a protection of the family as “union of a man and a woman”. “The concept of family is indispensable for us because a strong nation comes from a strong family. Lately LGBT have infiltrated society trying to degrade our family structure,” Erdogan argued on October 7.

The CHP banned the wearing of the veil when it was in power, but the AKP lifted the ban in 2010 to allow the veil to be worn in universities and in 2013 to allow it to be worn by female civil servants.