Turkey slams Turkish Cypriot court ban on Koran courses

By Ahval

Turkey slammed a ruling by the top court of Northern Cyprus banning courses in the Koran, labelling it as a judicial coup and against secularism.

The court’s decision comes during increasing concern among some Turkish Cypriots that Turkey’s government is seeking to use its political and financial muscle to make the population more religious.

The decision is the product of an ideological and dogmatic mind, said Fahrettin Altun, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s director of communications.

“This judicial coup against the freedom of religion and belief is not acceptable and everyone who respects democracy has to react,” Altun said in a statement on Twitter on Thursday.

Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin Kur’an kurslarının kapatılmasıyla ilgili almış olduğu karar ideolojik ve dogmatik bir aklın ürünüdür. Laikliği bu denli sığ ve yanlış bir şekilde yorumlamak temel hak ve özgürlükleri ortadan kaldırmaya yönelik bir adımdır.

— Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) April 15, 2021

On Wednesday, the Constitutional Court of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus annulled a legal article allowing the Office of Religious Affairs to organise Koran courses. The office acts under the influence of Turkey’s own directorate of religion.

The court ruled that education in the Koran should be performed under state control and surveillance, said Hasan Esendağlı, the president of TRNC Bar Association, Yenidüzen newspaper reported on Thursday.

Secularism guarantees freedom of religion and cannot be used as a tool for banning religious education, Altun said. “However, Jacobins use secularism to suppress religious values and cultural wealth.”

The main teachers’ union in Northern Cyprus has urged the authorities to pay more attention to education, complaining that the TRNC has more mosques than schools and that religious education is on the rise due to an increase in unlicensed summer schools and Koran lessons.

The TRNC also gets its school textbooks from Turkey, which dropped evolution from the curriculum several years ago.

“This wrong decision is a threat to the existence and unity of the Turkish Cypriots,” Altun said. “Turkey will continue to stand by Turkish Cypriots with all its might and power and will disrupt this dangerous game played on them.”

Cyprus has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974, which was prompted by a brief Cypriot coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece. The internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus controls the southern two-thirds of the island and the TRNC, recognised only by Turkey, the remainder.

Since its foundation in 1983, the TRNC has relied heavily on financial assistance from Turkey. There is an increasing fear among indigenous Turkish Cypriots that the Turkish government is seeking to Islamise and demographically re-shape the state through migration and other means. Turkey denies the charges.