At least 100,000 secular Turks demonstrated in Turkey's third-largest city yesterday, keeping up pressure on the Islamic-rooted government that they fear is working to raise the influence of religion on society.
Police deployed thousands of officers, a day after a bomb at an Izmir market killed one person and injured 14 others. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, nor evidence that it was linked to the demonstration. Izmir is a port city on the Aegean coast that is a bastion of secularism, and Islamic parties fare poorly there.
The rally follows similar demonstrations by hundreds of thousands in Ankara and Istanbul last month. The rallies were staged to pressure Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government after it nominated a presidential candidate deemed to be Islamist.
PHOTO: AFP
The candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, was forced to suspend his bid after the opposition boycotted the voting process in the parliament.
"These rallies have been useful in forcing the government to take a step back," protester Neslihan Erkan said. "The danger is still not over. These rallies must continue until there is no longer a threat."
Protesters, many of whom traveled to Izmir from other cities, gathered under sunny skies on the seafront. They carried anti-government banners, red-and-white Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revered leader who founded the secular republic in 1923. Turkish flags hung from balconies and windows, as well as buses and fishing boats in Izmir's bay.
"I am here to defend my country," said Yuksel Uysal, a teacher. "I am here to defend Ataturk's revolution."
Thousands were still trying to reach Izmir and traffic choked highways leading to the city, local media reported.
Gul, Erdogan's close ally, abandoned his presidential bid after pro-secular lawmakers boycotted two rounds of voting in parliament, creating a political deadlock.
Erdogan's government called early general elections for July 22 and passed a constitutional amendment to let the people, instead of parliament, elect the president. The amendment must be endorsed by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer.
Gul has indicated he could run for president in a popular vote.
Secularists fear if Gul becomes president, the Islamic-rooted ruling party could challenge the country's secular system unchecked. Sezer, a staunch secularist, had acted as a brake on the government by vetoing numerous bills and blocking the appointment of hundreds of officials.
The ruling Justice and Development Party, which commands a strong majority in parliament, came to power in 2002 as Turkey struggled to emerge from a financial crisis and quickly established a strong reform record. The opposition, viewed by detractors as an elitist group resistant to change, now seeks to overcome internal differences before the July polls.
"Unite! Unite! Unite!" the protesters shouted.
Erdogan spent time in jail in 1999 for reciting an Islamic poem that prosecutors said amounted to a challenge to Turkey's secular system. Many of his party's members, including Gul, are pious Muslims who made their careers in the country's Islamist political movement.
However, Erdogan's government has done more than many other governments to advance Turkey's EU membership bid, and rejects claims that it has an Islamist agenda.
Turkey's secularism is enshrined in the Constitution and fiercely guarded by the judiciary and by the military, which had threatened to intervene in the presidential elections in order to safeguard secularism. The military has ousted civilian governments in the past.
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