Turkey\u2019s gradual backsliding from an illiberal democracy to an autocracy has reached a new stage.<\/p>\n
Having reinforced his power by suppressing all opposition, President Erdogan has now turned his attention to reigning in the dissenting voices in his party.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s surprise development<\/a> at the Central Decision and Executive Board (MKYK) of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to take away the key prerogative of its leader to appoint provincial and district heads of the party was an unmistakable signal to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that his days may be numbered.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, the remarks by Ismail Kahraman, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly while he was standing in for the President during Mr Erdogan\u2019s trip abroad, was another sign marking a critical point in Turkey\u2019s transition.<\/p>\n Speaking to a group of religious scholars, Mr Kahraman, handpicked by the President after the November 1st<\/sup> elections to lead the Parliament, suggested that Turkey\u2019s new constitution should not be secular but one that reflects the country\u2019s Islamic identity. \u201cIt needs to discuss religion. It should not be irreligious, this new constitution should be a religious constitution\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Secularism has long been the most bitter ideological battleground in Turkey and sure enough, the speaker\u2019s comment sparked a stronger than usual reaction.<\/p>\n Both Mr Erdogan and the Prime Minister Davutoglu have dismissed suggestions that a religious constitution was on its way, claiming that the speaker of Parliament was speaking in a personal capacity, but Pandora\u2019s Box has now been opened.<\/p>\n Mr Erdogan has been engineering a steady progression towards a constitutional referendum and it is now becoming crystal clear that consolidating his executive powers will not be the only target in his plans for the next year.<\/p>\n Plagued by political ineptitude, Turkey\u2019s main opposition party CHP did not see it coming. Now presented with a choice of a religious constitution and a non-religious one, their space for a vigorous debate and advocacy for banishing all things religious from the public sphere will be suffocatingly small.<\/p>\n The principle of secularism has been, more or less explicitly, already undermined in Turkey. \u00a0The victory won by Turkey\u2019s Alevi community on Tuesday, at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had created little stir in the country. Yet, the Court has ruled that Alevis’ right to freedom of religion had been violated, and the religious group was the subject of discrimination.<\/p>\n In recent years, there have been a number of prosecutions against writers, journalists and artists on charges of \u2018insulting religious values\u2019, \u2018defamation of religion\u2019 and \u2018blasphemy\u2019.<\/p>\n On Thursday, a court in Istanbul sentenced Cumhuriyet journalists Ceyda Karan and Hikmet \u00c7etinkaya, for republishing the Charlie Hebdo cover image for \u201cinciting hate and enmity. They were tried but acquitted of another charge of \u201copenly insulting religious values\u201d.<\/p>\n When the state, the executive and the judiciary are not standing neutral between different religions and beliefs, it is difficult to take the President\u2019s and the Prime Minister\u2019s repeatedly stated commitment to everyone\u2019s religious liberty in Turkey seriously.<\/p>\n Back in 2012, when the- then- prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared their intention to raise a religious youth, some people dismissed it lightly, believing that Turkey\u2019s complex society would not be so amenable to social engineering.<\/p>\n Since then, the country\u2019s education system has been transformed beyond recognition. The massive growth of Islamic schools and the forced conversion of thousands of secular schools into religious vocational Imam Hatip schools as well as revision of school text books have already changed the educational landscape.<\/p>\n