"Briefing on the Release of the 2009 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom
Michael H. Posner
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Washington, DC
October 26, 2009
[Editor's Note: Secretary Clinton introduced Assistant Secretary Posner at the conclusion of her remarks on the release of the 2009 International Religious Freedom Report.]
...QUESTION: (Inaudible) with Turkish daily Hurriyet. Regarding Turkey here and the executive summary, it says authorities continue their broad ban on wearing Islamic religious headscarves in government offices, as well as in public schools. So what are you saying? Are you saying that the ban on headscarves should be lifted in Turkey?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY POSNER: We’re saying that this is one of the issues of how people express their religious identity, and I think as a general matter, our intention, our hope would be that societies would find a way to allow people to express their religious attitude, their religious belief in nonviolent ways. I don’t know that we’ve got a government position on headscarves, but it – I think raising that in the report suggests that we are trying to encourage, in a general way, governments to find – look, revisit questions about symbolic representations of religion that are nonviolent, and to the extent possible, encourage people or allow people to make those decisions for themselves."
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