Before we blame France, how about Turkey?

[SOO MAAL]

Islamic Head Scarves at Issue in Killing of Judge in Turkey

By SEBNEM ARSU

ISTANBUL, May 17 — A gunman stormed into a courthouse meeting room in Ankara on Wednesday and shot five judges, apparently in anger at a ruling enforcing a strict ban on the wearing of Islamic head scarves.

 

One judge later died, and top officials, including the prime minister, who himself had criticized the court's ruling, rushed to denounce the attack as a violation of Turkey's secular and democratic traditions.

 

The gunman, who was captured, is Alparslan Arslan, a lawyer.

 

He is not known to have previously displayed strong Islamist views, but during the siege, "he presented himself as the soldier of God," said Tansel Colasan, acting chief judge of the highest administrative court, the Council of State, in whose courthouse the shooting took place.

 

"He reportedly said he was there to punish the court members for their verdicts on the head scarf cases," Judge Colasan told reporters outside the courthouse in Ankara, the capital.

 

The shooting underlines the frictions Turkey faces as it navigates between those pressing for a greater role for Islam and those who want to protect secular rule. In recent years the government has worked to improve its democratic procedures in order to join the European Union.

 

The authorities said Mr. Arslan shot the members of the court, which handles state administrative matters, during their morning meeting. As a licensed lawyer, Mr. Arslan had relatively easy access to the courthouse, Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said.

 

Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin was shot in the head and died after surgery. Another judge, Mustafa Birden, who was shot in the stomach, was described as being in stable condition, as were the other three who were shot.

 

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said, "Pressures and threats will not defeat Turkish justice."

 

Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim, but its law prohibits Islamic attire, including head scarves, at schools and other public buildings, in an effort to control religious influence on social and political life. In February the court ruled that a nursery school teacher would not be allowed to wear a head scarf, even away from the school premises. Critics saw this as an intrusion into her private life.

 

The state-run Anatolian News Agency, citing the accounts of investigators, reported that Mr. Arslan, in detention after the shootings, had identified himself as an ultra-nationalist who was independent of any organization, and had said he was influenced by the debates on the head scarf. The investigators said they had found a handgun in his car.

 

The NTV news channel showed a front page of Vakit, a pro-Islamic newspaper, from February that featured an article that heavily criticized members of the court for supporting the ban on head scarves. The paper printed photos of the judges, including those attacked Wednesday. An Istanbul prosecutor has ordered an investigation of whether the newspaper violated the law by encouraging violence and making targets of official figures.

 

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who leads the Islamic-inspired Justice and Development Party, has periodically criticized the court for rulings like the one on head scarves. But at a news conference after the shootings, he rejected implications that such criticism heightened public anger toward the court.

 

"This incident is one to be denounced," Mr. Erdogan said. "Building an association between the attack and the head scarf issue, or my views in the pre-election period, is an even uglier approach."

 

Sumru Cortoglu, the chairwoman of the Council of State, said the government had rejected her plea for more protection in face of news media reports that seemed to make judges targets of violence. But Mr. Cicek, the justice minister, said additional protection was ordered last month.

[THE EMPEROR]

what happend to the great ottoman turks....

[Jamilah]

Originally posted by THE EMPEROR:

what happend to the great ottoman turks....

Greed and corruption.

[ElPunto]

^I would add - Ataturk and inferiority complex