Secular Turks throng to protest pro-Islamist ruling party
From the Associated Press
Choking the highways and crammed onto ferries, hundreds of thousands of Turks streamed into this port city on Sunday in an enormous show of opposition to the pro-Islamic ruling party, increasing pressure on the government ahead of early elections.
Some 1.5 million protesters carried anti-government banners, red-and-white Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the secular republic in 1923. Turkish flags hung from balconies and windows, as well as buses and fishing boats and yachts bobbing in Izmir's bay.
"I am here to defend my country," said Yuksel Uysal, a teacher. "I am here to defend Ataturk's revolution."
Throughout the morning, thousands were trying to reach Izmir and highways leading to the city were at a standstill. Municipal authorities said some 200,000 people sailed in on ferries.
The political turmoil displayed the growing secular-Islamic rift in this mainly Muslim country of 75 million that is vying for European Union membership and whose secular laws, enshrined in the constitution, are fiercely guarded by the judiciary and by the military.
(Continued here.)
Choking the highways and crammed onto ferries, hundreds of thousands of Turks streamed into this port city on Sunday in an enormous show of opposition to the pro-Islamic ruling party, increasing pressure on the government ahead of early elections.
Some 1.5 million protesters carried anti-government banners, red-and-white Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the secular republic in 1923. Turkish flags hung from balconies and windows, as well as buses and fishing boats and yachts bobbing in Izmir's bay.
"I am here to defend my country," said Yuksel Uysal, a teacher. "I am here to defend Ataturk's revolution."
Throughout the morning, thousands were trying to reach Izmir and highways leading to the city were at a standstill. Municipal authorities said some 200,000 people sailed in on ferries.
The political turmoil displayed the growing secular-Islamic rift in this mainly Muslim country of 75 million that is vying for European Union membership and whose secular laws, enshrined in the constitution, are fiercely guarded by the judiciary and by the military.
(Continued here.)
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