Denktash: It is unacceptable to use a child to politicise religion

It is “unacceptable to use a child to politicise religion”, Serdar Denktash, the son of influential late Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, said on Saturday, in response to the ongoing controversy over whether children should be allowed to wear hijabs at Turkish Cypriot schools.

“Of course, the family of any child has the right to say, ‘we are a strait-laced family, we want our daughter to cover her head’. Of course, that child also has the right to receive an education. There is also a school at which she can receive an education in this way. There can be no such thing as restricting anyone’s right to education,” he said.

On this matter, he criticised some who he felt had taken the debate too far, including Ibrahim Damar, the imam of the mosque in the northern Nicosia suburb of Mandres, who had described teachers opposed to hijabs as “infidels” and said he would refuse to lead a funeral service for “anyone who opposes headscarves”.

“We all oppose the mentality which says things like, ‘those who do not share our view should go to the Greek Cypriot side’, and ‘do not bring their corpses to the mosque’,” he said.

He was also keen to stress Turkish Cypriots’ secular nature, saying, “Turkish Cypriots are the most secular Muslim society in the world”.

“For us, Kemalism is not something we have had to memories. We are a society which has adopted the Kemalist lifestyle. The Turkish Cypriots voluntarily adopted Ataturk’s principles and reforms. We did not idolise or deify Ataturk but made a way of life by sincerely believing in him,” he said.

He also said efforts were being made to polarise Turkish Cypriot society through the issue of headscarves and added that the reason for this is October’s Turkish Cypriot leadership elections.

“We are being asked to divide ourselves into two camps – religious and atheist – because it has been seen that in these elections, dividing us over whether we support a federation or a two-state solution will not work,” he said.

He added, “the distinction between Turkish and Cypriot also does not work any more, so an attempt is being made to create a division through the politicisation of religion”.

The attempt to legalise the wearing of hijabs in schools has also found dissent among the north’s ruling coalition, with ruling coalition party UBP ‘MPs’ Hasan Tacoy and Izlem Gurcag Altugra, both former ‘ministers’ relegated to the backbenches in 2023, coming out against the move.

Altugra, the most recent woman to hold a ‘ministerial’ post in the north, was the more scathing of the two, and spoke on Kuzey Kibris TV about the girl who was turned away from the Irsen Kucuk middle school in northern Nicosia for wearing a hijab.

“What does it mean for a girl under the age of 18 to come to school wearing a headscarf? The child was asked and said she wore it of her own free will. There is no such thing. We, the Turkish Cypriot people, are modern people and we were raised as such. There is no such thing in our culture or our life,” she said.

Tacoy, meanwhile, echoed Denktash’s sentiment that the move was made for political purposes.

“The discussion has no religious dimension and is completely political,” he said, while also criticising the fact that the UBP’s party congress had discussed the matter on Friday.

“I don not believe that a party congress is the place to discuss this issue. I will not attend such meetings because I am against these politicisations being carried out to a point which is leading society to more tension,” he said.

The ruling coalition had initially legalised the wearing of hijabs in schools midway through March, but faced a fierce backlash from teachers, the majority of whom are staunchly secular, before withdrawing the amendment on the morning of the protest at the embassy.

Teachers were nonetheless keen to show their displeasure at the amendment and their view that the embassy had played a role, with some even believing it was put down to deliberately sow division in Turkish Cypriot society.

At the protest, Eylem called on ambassador Ali Murat Basceri to “go home”, with footage of her speech now having gone viral in Turkey, where political tensions are heightened for separate reasons.

Tatar had demanded that legal action be taken against teachers who “disturbed our peace” during the protests, saying that he would meet with Turkish Cypriot police chief Kasim Kuni and chief public prosecutor Sarper Altincik and “request that legal steps be taken”.

On Thursday night, Tatar had been forced to deny that a meeting he had held with Turkish ambassador Ali Murat Basceri and the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel was called over the matter of hijabs. 

Previously, teachers had refused to let planned school exams go ahead, and at the same time refused to allow children wearing hijabs, and other religious garments including a chador – a full-body cloak which covers the body from head to toe – to enter schools.