 Turkish police arrested 38 supporters of a pan-Islamist party attempting to demonstrate at a mosque where Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was performing Friday prayers, the state-run Anatolian news agency said. Police quickly surrounded the group of Hizbut-Tahrir supporters at the Haci Bayram Mosque in Ankara who shouted slogans and tried to distribute leaflets in favor of Islamic rule in this mainly Muslim but strictly secular country, Anatolia said. Erdogan was inside the mosque at the time.
| "Ever been in a Turkish prison, Jimmy?" |
The local prosecutorâs office ordered five of the detained to be released and the rest to be questioned by anti-terror police, the agency added.
| "Ozman! My moustachio wax! And the Number 7 truncheon, please!" |
Hizbut-Tahrir, or the Party of Islamic Liberation, is a Sunni movement founded in the Middle East in the 1950s and aims to establish a world-wide Islamic state. It is outlawed in Turkey and was classified as a âterroristâ organization by Russiaâs Supreme Court in February 2003. Germany has banned the group for anti-Semitism; British Prime Minister Tony Blair said last month that his country too would ban the party as part of a security crackdown following the July 7 bombings in London. The group remains legal, however, in most Western countries.
| For the time being, anyway... |
Yesterdayâs police intervention came one week after a similar demonstration by Hizbut-Tahrir members at a mosque in Istanbul. Riot police were on hand then but did not intervene and were severely criticized by the media and most political leaders, including Erdogan. The protesters carried placards reading âEither the caliphate or martyrdom,â referring to the partyâs aim of choosing a caliph to implement Islamic law. Despite its secular roots, Turkey has never managed to erase Islamic parties completely from its political landscape. |