ISTANBUL: Hundreds of Turkish women posted pictures of themselves laughing on Twitter yesterday to protest comments by Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, who had urged women not to laugh in public to “protect moral values”.
Melda Onur, a lawmaker from the main opposition party CHP, said on Twitter that Arinc’s comments portrayed laughing as a dishonourable act and left women exposed to violence.
Arinc criticised the media yesterday for taking his comments out of context and focusing on a small part of his speech, in which he said he advised both men and women to adopt “ethical behaviours”.
“Some people criticise me by picking up only a part of an 1 1/2-hour speech. What a baseless and disgusting claim. People who have listened to all of my comments have realised this,” Arinc was quoted as saying by Hurriyet newspaper.
“I believe I have made a useful speech,” he said. “If I had only said women should not laugh then I have done something irrational. But my speech was about manners and moral rules.”
Meanwhile, Arnic has courted more controversy by attacking women who he said could not resist pole dancing. “There are women who leave on holiday without their husbands and others who don’t have self control and can’t stop themselves from climbing up a pole.”
“Anyone can live like this. I can’t be angry against you but I can just have pity for you,” he said.
Arinc’s latest remarks appear to have been prompted by the wife of a prominent Turkish footballer who posted a picture of herself pole dancing on Instagram with the slogan “when I see a pole, I just can’t resist”.
The woman, the wife of Caner Erkin, a prominent player for Istanbul giants Fenerbahce, has since deleted the image from her account.
Mimicking the Twitter campaign on Tuesday over Arinc’s comments on laughing, bloggers posted pictures of their pets climbing up poles or flags proudly flying from poles.
Political tensions are riding high in Turkey as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan prepares to stand in presidential elections on August 10 with his critics accusing the government of seeking to erode the country’s secular principles.
Turkey’s liberal press slammed Arinc’s latest remarks.
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