5 February 2010 / MUSTAFA ERDOĞAN STAR,
In 2006 Turkey took a step for the better and moved to allow people to leave the religion boxes of their national identity cards empty if they wished to do so.
This change, which ran counter to former statutes forcing everyone to record their religion on their identity cards, was one tilted more towards freedom than the previous regulations. And if we recall for a moment that it was the Constitutional Court which made the new rulings on this front -- the same court which approved the former situations under the 1961 and 1982 constitutional periods -- then you realize that this new situation is even more worthy of commendation. But now, the European Court of Human Rights is pushing for Turkey to go a step beyond all this and simply get rid of the “religion” box on national identity cards. There is no question that this all augurs well in terms of general freedoms for us.
