The prime minister and his allies say mixed-gender student housing gives rise to depravity, drugs, prostitution, and ‘terrorism.’
Earlier this month, Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, hailed the lifting of a decades-old ban on female lawmakers and civil servants wearing Islamic headscarves. The abolition of the archaic provision, Erdogan said, allowed all women—heads covered or heads bare—to participate as full and equal members of the Turkish republic.
It was a rare moment of advocating for personal freedom by a Turkish leader who’s been dubbed the “Islamist Big Brother” and accused of seeking to micromanage the private lives of Turks in his long-running campaign to reshape Turkey along stricter Islamic lines.
But the moment was short-lived. Last week, Erdogan sparked a firestorm of criticism when he condemned the idea of male and female students sharing accommodations in university dorms operated by the state or private group houses—a move that has thrown into relief the increasing polarization between urban and rural, liberal and conservative Turks ahead of local elections in March.
Among the grounds for government intervention, according to one minister and Erdogan ally, is that mixed-student housing gives rise to depravity, drug trafficking, prostitution and terrorism.
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Παρακαλούνται οι φίλοι που καταθέτουν τις απόψεις τους να χρησιμοποιούν ψευδώνυμο για να διευκολύνεται ο διάλογος. Μηνύματα τα οποία προσβάλλουν τον συγγραφέα του άρθρου, υβριστικά μηνύματα ή μηνύματα εκτός θέματος θα διαγράφονται. Προτιμήστε την ελληνική γλώσσα αντί για greeklish.