Recently, the teachers union in Turkey decided to demonstrate against some of the policies of the country’s educational system. They organized a rally to demonstrate in favor of secularism in Turkey’s education system. The fuss began back in 2012 with the promotion of Imam Hatip Islamic schools by the government angered many citizens. The 2012 Education Reform Bill was written without public debate —or even discussion in the Turkish education ministry’s own consultative body— and did not even figure in the government’s 2011 election manifesto. Besides undermining Turkish secularism, Turkish teachers believe the new measures would weaken educational standards and deepen social inequalities. Several of Turkey’s leading universities — including Bosphorus University, Middle East Technical University, Sabanci University and Koç University all issued press statements describing the reforms of 2012 as hastily conceived, retrograde and out of step with current thinking.

Last year, Turkey’s parliament lifted a long-standing ban on Islamic headscarves in the civil service and this past September, it removed a ban on female students wearing them in high schools. More and more the educational system seems to be giving into Muslim demands. To protest the demonstrators gathered in the morning in Ankara ay the Turkish capitol’s Tandoğan Square upon a call from teachers’ union Eğitim-İş to demand “Respect to Secular Education and Labor.”  Some fear that this could be threatened by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who founded the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party. He has recently made statements on education, which some have interpreted as a signal that he is planning to bring more religion into the classrooms.

Not long after the protest began, police moved in with Pepper Spray, Tear Gas, and Water Canons. More than a hundred people were arrested. The protestors were attempting to March towards Kızılay.
Mehmet Balık, head of the union’s Antalya branch who was being kept in custody at the police headquarters for interrogation, said that the police crackdown came without a warning. “We arrived in two buses from Antalya in the Tandoğan Square around 10:30 a.m.” said Balık. “The police attacked with TOMAs [anti-riot vehicles with pressurized water cannons] and tear gas without any warning. They soaked down the group, which also included children and the elderly.”
Balık said they were only guilty of “defending the homeland’s unity and protesting the thieves.”

“We stood up for the rights of our teachers and civil servants, but we were the victims of a police attack without any warning,” he added.

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James Riordan is the author of 33 books including the New York Times Best Seller, Break on Through : The Life & Death of Jim Morrison. Visit jamesriordan.com for his complete bio.