THE DAILY STAR

Friday, May 20, 2005

Banning women's right to wear a veil is unbecoming for the great Muslim nation of Turkey, especially if it is aimed at pleasing Europe, according to the senior Shiite cleric

Senior Lebanese Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah expressed the fear Thursday that barring Turkish women from wearing a veil in public institutions was aimed at meeting certain terms for Turkey's entry into the European Union. In an open letter addressed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Fadlallah said:

May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. I was and am still following up on the way your government has been managing freedoms and human rights issues, especially issues pertaining to a person's own right to manage one's personal affairs in matters of religious faith.

I have noticed a sort of tyranny in the persecution of Muslim peoples, particularly regarding the wearing of the veil. A law was passed barring the compulsory wearing of the veil in public schools, universities and institutions, which hindered many Muslim women from pursuing their secondary and academic studies and exercising their national and human rights in enrolling in state-run departments.

We have also followed up on the women's mass protests which were repressed by the government by all means.

We, based on our Islamic statute and according to the rules ordained by the Islamic brotherhood, point to the following:

1.We do not hold the Development and Justice Party represented in your government responsible for this law because it was not decreed by the party.

2.The Turkish government imposed this law under the pretext that the wearing of the veil contradicts the secular regime that constitutes the basis of the Turkish regime. However, the whole world knows that secularism, in principle and in text, respects the personal freedom of belief, including the citizen's freedom of choosing one's attire; especially since the veil, as you know, is a godly religious obligation and not a mere tradition imposed by customs. Thus, its removal is considered a cruelty to devout citizens.

Most of the Western and other secular countries do not abide by this law, and we have seen how the United States negatively reacted vis-a-vis the French law that resembles that endorsed in Turkey.

3.This law, which deprives women from the least of their rights to exercise their religious duty, is, in all human and religious senses, a violation of their rights ordained by the celestial religions and the positive principles and takes us back, in one way or another, to the ages of cultural underdevelopment based on the elimination of the other and on fanaticism, specifically in regard to the freedom of belief and expression.

4.We fear that the way the issue of Muslim women's veils was dealt with is a quick answer to terms imposed on Turkey to join the European Union and wonder: Is this an attempt to convince Europe of Turkey's relinquishment of its observation of Islamic obligations, even through this law that contradicts human rights, particularly regarding women to whom the world wants to grant human rights? Turkey's attachment to the privacy of its Muslim people should be a source of respect and not the contrary in the eyes of Europeans and others.

Here, we express our full surprise about the objection by the president of the higher constitutional government in Turkey against revoking the decision even if the Turkish Parliament itself invalidates the law, which implies tyrannical orientations against the decision of the people that Parliament represents.

5.We do not wish to engage in a controversy about the Islamic code which we and the secular regime in Turkey adopt. However, out of concern for Turkey - the state and nation - we believe it is in its interest to preserve stability and social unity by halting oppression and tyranny against the largest social class, particularly in matters of personal religious obligations, and not undermining the state's secular regime at the same time.

6.Muslims and free peoples of the world deem it necessary to invalidate the unfair law and grant veiled Muslim Turkish women their right to personal freedom in harmony with the open contemporary secular values that you respect, and with international human rights.

You understand that the Turkish people are a faithful Muslim people and that fanaticism regarding this law is wrong.

As we appeal to the Turkish government to reconsider these unfair laws, we call on such a courageous person as yourself to rectify this situation that contradicts all Islamic and human values and principles, knowing that the acknowledgement of a wrong doing in this case is a great virtue and that you would be known as a wise person when dealing with delicate issues.

In conclusion, I express to you and your respectable government my deepest esteem and send you my best personal and Islamic regards.