Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç drew reactions on social media with his words at AKP Bursa province organization’s Merinos Park holiday (Bayram) celebration, "Women shouldn’t laugh out loud in public.”
In response to the comment, women shared their laughing photos on Twitter.
Arınç had asserted that a moral depression has been taking place in Turkey of late, and said:
"I am afraid the effect of televisions on everything from our daily life to our children’s growth is this much for this and that, but we are becoming a different society. Immorality, prostitution are becoming a quagmire. Our children, our youngsters are going in very bad directions in their sexual orientations. The age of puberty, of adolescence has shrunk greatly in Turkey. It has gone down to almost age 9-10 in girls and 11-12 in boys. As a result, there are agents, some in the virtual world, in the online world, some unfortunately on television, on newspapers’ gossip columns, and some in the educational space, principally in universities that encourage in particular these sexual orientations and that misuse such excitements, such enthusiasms of our youngsters.
“We need to rediscover the Koran. There is a moral regression. The matter of modesty is very important. Modesty, the sense of shame. 'If he or she blushes when you look them in the face’ the hadith goes, modesty is good. Even better if on a woman. There’s something called modesty not just for women, but for men and all creatures. There’s modesty for men too. He cannot lie; he faces the floor when he attempts to say something that conveys embarrassment. Where are those girls of ours that symbolize chastity, that symbolize modesty, who blush slightly when we look them in the face, who can bend their necks forward and evade our eyes? Chastity is very important. It’s not just a name. Chastity is an ornament on woman, too. It is an ornament on man, as well. He must be chaste. Man, too. He shouldn’t be a womanizer. He should be loyal to his wife. He should love his children. And woman should be chaste as well. She should know private from public. She shouldn’t laugh out loud in public. She shouldn’t entice with all her motions; one needs to preserve one’s chastity. Nowadays when somebody says this, people can answer, “What language is this guy speaking?” This is how much we have become alien to our values today." (NV/PU)
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