Hurriyet published an article by Barcin Yinanc devoted to the anti-Muslim movie and the continuing Islamophobia debate.
"Before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan decided to cancel his visit to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, he was planning to talk about adopting international legislation on insults to religion. He confirmed that he would while commenting on the 14-minute trailer mocking the Prophet Muhammad, which sparked violent riots across the Muslim world. He said Turkey could lead on this issue," the article reads.
"This betrays the typical Turkish mentality of “banning.” We don’t like something? Then ban and get rid of it! Well, things just don’t work like that in the “Western hemisphere” - the democratic standards of which Turkey has been aspiring to reach."
"At that time - already extremely concerned about the rise in “anti-immigrant,” Islamophobic” and “racist” rhetoric in Europe - Turkish diplomats tried to raise awareness of this issue. They simply tried to convey the message that there should not be a hierarchical relationship between freedom of expression and freedom of religion, as Europeans tended always to put the former above everything else. Every time Turks tried to talk about freedom of expression being abused against Muslims, they hit the wall as Europeans told them: “freedom of expression is a core right!” the article reads.
"As a country that has a bad international reputation for limiting freedom of expression, Turkey could indeed be the champion of the “censorious” cause. But it cannot lead any attempt to have an international legislation to ban Islamophobia, and at any rate that would be a futile attempt," the author concludes.
