Turkey opposition leader links lifting of scarf ban to 'IS mentality'

Turkey's main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu has slammed a recent government decision to allow schoolgirls to wear the headscarf, calling on mothers “not to surrender their daughters to ISIL [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] mentality.”

“The Justice and Development Party’s [AKP] ‘new Turkey’ is not only against the 81-year-old traditions of the Republic, but also defies the thousand-year accumulation of Islam in Anatolia and the tradition of Sufism in these lands,” Kılıçdaroğlu told Hürriyet in Bolu’s Mengen district on 27 September. 

“We must say that this mentality is not local,” he added.

According to Kılıçdaroğlu, this “exported religion” has ties to organizations that are enemies to humankind, such as IS.