The summer course program of Turkey’s Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has been announced. According to the program, children will be told keeping pets was illicit, watching TV was a sin, and holding hands with opposite sex is makruh (undesirable)

The summer program of Turkey’s Diyanet allowing the participation of 4-year-old children to Quran courses by removing the age limit has been announced. While the program serves for the reactionary line represented by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, there are no restrictions on participation in these courses except the condition of getting permission from parents for children under 18.

‘IN ORDER THAT CHILDREN CAN PERFORM PRAYER WITH COMMUNITY AFTER THE HOLIDAY…’

The Directorate of Religious Affairs stated that ‘‘it is aimed to raise self-confident children and provide awareness about national and moral values in the younger generations’’ with this summer training program, according to the report in Birgün daily. In addition to this, Diyanet’s program points out that ‘‘the courses are significant in terms of their incentive role for the participant children to perform prayer with the community in the mosques after the holiday’’.

‘KEEPING CAT AND DOG IS ILLICIT, WATCHING TV IS A SIN’

Besides, it drew attention that the Shafi’ism (one of the sects in Islam) is given particular importance in the Program of Boarding Quran Courses held by the Diyanet. In the courses, children will be told different practices of Shafi’ism sect declaring that keeping cats and dogs is illicit, watching TV is a sin, and holding the hand of an opposite sex is ‘makruh’ (undesirable). It is also remarkable that the program, which describes only the practices intrinsic to Shafi’ism, do not include any information regarding other sects.

The President of Turkey’s Diyanet Mehmet Görmez had previously stated that "we have two red lines. First one is the depiction of Alawism as an un-Islamic way. The second one is the presentation of cemevis (houses of worship for the Alevis) as the sanctuary of a different religious belief." Despite Görmez’s statements, it is obviously seen that there is a religious and sectarian discrimination in the courses opened with the so-called purpose of teaching the children the Koran and Islam.

Claiming that terrorist incidents arise out of "religious and moral deficiencies", the President of Religious Affairs had previously advocated that the presence of a mosque in every university campus has a crucial role for the future of Turkey to raise a generation devoted to national and moral values, saying that “Presence of a mosque in every campus, which suits with the architecture of the campus, and the presence of a religious place that is open to the hearts and souls of every student is very important for the future of our country”.

The Directorate of Religious Affairs’ trade union Diyanet-Sen had distributed booklets in kindergartens in the southern city of Mersin in April 2017, which clearly make political propaganda calling the kindergarten children for jihad. Diyanet-Sen had advocated its propaganda by stating that "Jihad means peace".