Thursday, May 18, 2006

: Turks march to defend secularism

"Turks march to defend secularism

Thousands of Turks have rallied to denounce the killing of a judge and to defend secularism. Crowds gathered outside the mosque in Ankara where the funeral of Mustafa Ozbilgin was taking place. He was shot by a religious gunman angry about a ruling that stopped a woman becoming a teacher because she wore a headscarf.

There is a debate over whether the governing party, which has Islamist roots, had contributed to the tensions behind the incident. 'I hope there is no political backdrop to the attack,' one man said outside the mosque"

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