Thousands of nationalist Turks marched in the capital, vowing to defend the secular regime against radical Islamic influences and urging the government not to make too many concessions in order to gain EU membership.
Some 12,000 people from more than 100 pro-secular associations waved Turkish flags on Saturday as they marched to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
Turkey is predominantly Muslim but is governed by strict secular laws that separate religion and state. Many fear that if left unchecked, Islamic fundamentalism will lead to a theocracy like that in Iran.
Retired General Sener Eruygur, president of the Ataturk Thought Association and former commander of Turkey's paramilitary forces, warned against purported plans by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Islamic-rooted ruling party to run for president -- a largely ceremonial post, but a symbol of secularism in Turkey.
Staunchly secular Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer will retire in May, and the parliament -- dominated by Erdogan's legislators -- will choose the new president.
Since taking power in 2002, Erdogan has stoked secularist concerns by speaking out against restrictions on wearing Islamic-style headscarfs in government offices and schools and supporting religious schools. He also tried to criminalize adultery before being forced to back down under intense EU pressure, and some party-run municipalities have taken steps to ban alcohol.
A former Constitutional Court judge, Sezer has vetoed a record number of laws he ruled violated the secular Constitution and has blocked government efforts to appoint hundreds of reportedly Islamic-oriented candidates to important civil service positions.
"The gains of the republic were being rolled back one by one," Senal Sarihan, president of the Republican Women's Association, said in a speech during Saturday's rally. "Today is the day to rise up for the Republic."
Erdogan's government denies it has an Islamic agenda. It has also shown a commitment to joining the EU by enacting sweeping reforms that allowed the country to start membership talks last year -- a move greatly welcomed by the US.
Protesters rallied on Saturday, however, against EU demands to grant greater rights to Kurds and other minorities. Turkey is fighting a separatist Kurdish guerrilla group in a war that has killed more than 37,000 people since 1984, and many Turks regard granting more rights to Kurds as a concession to the rebels.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.