Turkish women share smiling selfies after politician tells them not to laugh out loud
Turkey's deputy prime minister said women who laugh out loud are not decent and complained that obnoxious laughter was part of society's moral decline. Turkish women and their supporters are protesting the condemnation of laughter by posting grinning photos online.
BY MEG WAGNER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, July 30, 2014, 11:56 AM
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@FEMENINNA VIA YOUTUBEAfter a politician instructed women not laugh in public in order to remain 'decent,' Turkish women and their supporters have started a viral protest, posting smiling portraits online.
There's a serious reason these Turkish women are laughing.
After Turkey's deputy prime minister told women they shouldn't laugh in public, laughter lovers are protesting the giggle ban by posting smiling selfies online.
In a speech Monday, Bulent Arinc complained that modern society was in moral decline — and then loosely explained that women who laugh out loud were part of the ethics erosion.
"Chastity is so important. It is not only a name. It is an ornament for both women and men," he said, according to Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News.
Arinc, a founding member of Turkey's Islam-rooted ruling party, explained: "(A woman) will know what is haram and not haram. She will not laugh in public. She will not be inviting in her attitudes and will protect her chasteness."
The minister later defended his speech, claiming his remark was taken out of context. On Wednesday, he told a Turkish TV station that his speech was about general "good manners."
He did not mean to target natural laughter, but rather condemned women who "laugh artificially" — such as women "who go for a vacation with their lovers while leaving their husbands behind and can't wait to climb poles when they see one," he said.
His clarification didn't appease Turkish women and their smiling supporters.
ADEM ALTAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGESIn a speech lamenting modern society's lack of morals, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said women should not laugh in public.
Women across the world took to Twitter and posted photos of themselves laughing, a move of solidarity for grinning Turkish ladies. They're using the hashtage "#direnkahkaha," which means "resisted laughter."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/turkish-politician-women-laugh-public-article-1.1885506
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/10998133/Women-should-not-laugh-out-loud-in-public-Turkeys-deputy-prime-minister-says.html
Women should not talk about unnecessary topics on their mobiles, Turkey's Deputy PM Bulent Arınc says in an Eid al-Fitr speech
3:00PM BST 29 Jul 2014
Women should not laugh out loud in public or speak of trivial matters on the phone, according to Turkish deputy prime minister, Bulent Arınc.
Mr Arınc urged men and women to remember the importance of chastity during an Eid al-Fitr meeting on Monday in Bursa, west Turkey, and to have an acute awareness of shame.
He attacked television programmes aimed at young people which encouraged them to become "sex addicts" to an audience which included a majority of men.
There is a moral regression happening within the country, he said, and called on citizens to rediscover the Koran, the holy book of Islam.
“Chastity is so important. It is not only a name. It is an ornament for both women and men. [She] will have chasteness. Man will have it, too. He will not be a womanizer. He will be bound to his wife. He will love his children.
“A woman will know what is haram and not haram. She will not laugh out loud in public. She will not be inviting in her attitudes and will protect her chasteness,” Mr Arınc said.
But Mr Arınc was aware of the controversy he might cause and said: 'When someone says these things, they say, 'what language is this man speaking?'"
During the speech given to celebrate the end of Ramadan – during which Muslims fast for a month – Mr Arınc criticised the conversations women have on their mobile phones.
“Women give each other meal recipes while speaking on the mobile phone. ‘What else is going on?’ ‘What happened to Ayşe’s daughter?’ ‘When is the wedding?’ Talk about this face to face,” he said.
Reacting to his comments, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, who is the main opposition candidate against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said Turkey needed more laughter.
Mr İhsanoğlu said (translated): “Our country needs women’s and everyone’s laughter more than anything.”
But Mr Arınc's comments included criticism of Turkish society's consumerism as well, the English-language newspaper, Hurriyet Daily News, reported.
He called on Turkish people to use their cars only when necessary, and said even if the River Nile was filled with oil, there would not be enough fuel for cars.
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