The speaker, Vecihi Timuroğlu, who writes a column for the staunchly secular newspaper, drew ire with his highly controversial remarks. “Now, some beautiful women are sitting in front of me. They are also human like me. I become aware of my manhood when I see a woman wearing a headscarf,” he said.
The women reacted strongly to the speaker and left the room, saying: “We came here to listen to your opinions, and you are insulting us. You behaved shamefully.” Other participants shouted slogans such as “Turkey is secular and will remain secular” as the headscarved women left the room.
However, a woman who was not wearing a headscarf complained that she had invited the covered women to the discussion and said the Cumhuriyet speaker had embarrassed her with his comments.
CHP parliamentary group deputy chairman Muharrem İnce took the podium to ease the tension and apologized to the women. “If you adopt a strict stance and hurt people, you cannot win supporters, only lose them. That was an inappropriate comment. There is no need to shout slogans. I think the women were hurt. I offer them my apologies even though I am not responsible for the remark,” he said.
Some of the women returned to the room after İnce's apology. Stating that Turkey should go beyond the “Turkey is secular and will remain secular” slogan, İnce said, “We cannot repeat the same thing for 30 years.”
The CHP, a strong defender of the headscarf ban imposed on university students and civil servants, has been recently trying to bury the hatchet with headscarf wearing women through a pledge to solve the headscarf issue. CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, however, has so far failed to provide a satisfactory explanation as to how he plans to resolve the issue.
