Quran Archives

You deserve rape, Quran teacher tells children in Turkish school

Parents are demanding that a teacher of religion classes in northern Turkey be fired after he told some of his female students that they “deserve rape” for not wearing an Islamic headscarf.

“You don’t cover your head anyway, so raping you or doing evil to you is permissible [in Islam],” the female teacher, identified by the initials L.Y.İ., told students at the Halil Rıfat Paşa Middle School in the province of Tokat on March 9, according to parents who spoke to Doğan News Agency.

The teacher was reportedly angered by noise caused by mixed male and female students in an elective class on the Quran, during which 17 seventh graders were talking to each other instead of listening to the teacher.

According to the parents, the teacher also told the girls that they should have prayed for Özgecan Aslan – whose brutal murder in southern Turkey on Feb. 13 caused national outrage – instead of going to demonstrations to commemorate her.

Mahmut Demirbağ, the school’s headmaster, reportedly told the parents that the teacher “apologized” for the comments. However, some parents have continued to demand that she be dismissed, threatening legal action.

“She insulted 13-year-old girls for not wearing a headscarf during a Quran class, which is elective. This teacher cannot lecture my daughter,” a parent told the Doğan News Agency.

Levent Yazıcı, the National Education Director in Tokat, said an official investigation into the claims has been launched.

Elective classes on the Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad have been included in Turkish schools since 2012.

The religious education class, on the other hand, is compulsory. A recent European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling stated that high school students in Turkey must be allowed to opt out of this class to “ensure respect for parents’ convictions” and to guarantee the right to education.

Turkey, caliphate and Erdoğan by: ABDULLAH BOZKURT

The narrative, behavior pattern and policy decisions of Turkey’s chief political Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggests that he believes the caliphate can be resurrected, with himself as the sole contender to become caliph, thereby gaining autonomous political authority over at least part of the Islamic world.

For this grand ambition, Erdoğan has built a personality cult to reflect his image in the government and many political lackeys just parrot what he says or take their cues from Erdoğan’s speeches. Sensing “Master” Erdoğan’s (the name people around him call him) expectations on this matter, his protégée and caretaker Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu publicly announced in Skopje last week that his government will deliver a Turkish flag, Quran and Turkish dictionary to each and every home in Macedonia. Speaking at a political convention in his hometown Konya a few days later, Davutoğlu joyfully reaffirmed this utterly interventionist policy that is sure to raise eyebrows in many capitals in the Balkans.

As the political Islamist government finds it increasingly difficult to manage its affairs amid a deepening crisis of governance in Turkey, the suspension of the rule of law and gross violation of rights and liberties, we’ll likely see more religiously toned rhetoric and policy actions that are motivated by ideological considerations. Davutoğlu’s holding hands with Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal — who showed up in a surprise visit to Turkey — at a political rally is another indication that sensitive issues that draw the attention of pious Muslims, such as Palestinians, will be played out loudly in the coming months.