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| “Thank God Almighty,” said Mr. Erdogan in 1994, when he was the mayor of Istanbul. “I am a servant of Shariah.” |
"Advanced 'Islamist' Democracy" - Turkish President Erdoğan says women’s equality with men ‘against nature’. (HD).
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears set to anger women and rights groups in the country once again after voicing his strong objection to the equality of women and men, instead suggesting what he called “equivalency.”
“Equality is turning the victim into an oppressor by force or vice versa. What women need is to be able to be equivalent, rather than equal,” the president said.
He also reiterated an argument he voiced in the past, announcing: “You cannot bring women and men into equal positions; that is against nature because their nature is different.”
The president then went on to explain that Islam exalts women as “mothers” and said that when he was a child he used to kiss his mother's feet, referring to a hadith of Prophet Muhammad that says “Heaven lies at the foot of your mother.”
“My mother would be shy, but I used to say, ‘Mother, don't pull your feet away, because the scent of heaven is there.' Sometimes, she would cry [when I would say that],” Erdoğan said.
He also slammed feminists, saying they “don't accept the concept of motherhood.”
“But those who do understand are enough for us. We'll continue down this path with them,” he said. Read the full story here.
Flashback: Rare clip with Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan lashing out at feminists. In the late-1990s an AKP figure by the name of Cemil Çiçek served as the Minister for Family Affairs in Turkey. In a public statement, he noted that 'flirting is slutty.' In protest, 30 feminist women were divorced from their husbands showing how they can 'shape and determine their own lives' without government approval. Erdogan reacted furiously. When he became mayor of Istanbul, he held a speech backing his counterpart.
