21 June 2010 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL
The Council of State has appealed to the Constitutional Court to annul the smoking ban, which was instituted on July 19 last year for all indoor places in Turkey, for kahvehanes, traditional Turkish teahouses where men gather to smoke and have tea or coffee.
According to information gathered by one reporter from the Anatolia news agency on Sunday, the council of state noted that kahvehanes were traditional Turkish teahouses where men had smoked, had tea and played cards, backgammon and dominos for centuries. As these kahvehanes offer people much entertainment, it would not be appropriate to ban smoking at these places, the Council of State claimed. The Council of State also noted in its statement that even though the smoking ban was initiated for the benefit of people’s health, it is against personal liberty.Turkey, one of the 10 countries responsible for two-thirds of the world’s tobacco consumption according to the World Health Organization (WHO), has taken various initiatives to reduce tobacco consumption in the country, the most important of which is the indoor smoking ban.
