Daily Times

Sir: Yasser Latif Hamdani should stop kidding himself over Turkey being a secular state (“Turkey, Pakistan and Islam”, Daily Times, May 25, 2015). Not only is Turkey under its Islamist leader becoming an authoritarian state; it is also turning away from its secular path.

Turkey’s religious affairs department recognises only one religion: Sunni Islam. Since other faiths are not recognised, they have no legal status. Turkey spends billions on Sunni Islam — it employs over 60,000 imams, 10,000 muezzins, writes sermons for Friday prayers in mosques across the country as well as textbooks for schools, while other faiths such as the Alevi, an Anatolian religion close to Sufi Islam but separate and distinct in beliefs and practices, Christianity and Judaism are left to fend for themselves.

Turkey may look like a secular state on paper, but in terms of international law, which demands that a state must be impartial and treat all religions equally and maintain equal distance from all, it is de facto a Sunni state. To pretend that it is a secular state, as Mr Hamdani does, is tantamount to redefining secularism.

RANDHIR SINGH BAINS

Essex

UK