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Turkish Diplomat Decrees Turkish Women Shouldn’t Laugh, They Respond With Laughing Selfies

By Jan Omega
Published on: 15:25 PST, Jul 31, 2014

Earlier this week on Monday, deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Bulent Arinc, made a speech on Monday in which he stated that women should not laugh in public. The initial article, by Hurriyet Daily News, reports that Arinc made the speech on July 28th during an Eid el-Fitr meeting. His ideals of the chaste man or woman were described in which both have a sense of shame and honor.

However, reports are now coming in that the Turkish women are responding to Bulent Arinc’s words with selfies of themselves laughing.

Turkish Woman

According to an article by New York Daily News, it reports that women are protesting the public giggle ban by posting smiling selfies online. This is all in protest to the exact words that Bulent Arinc said which are stated below:

“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. [The 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. Where are our girls, who slightly blush, lower their heads and turn their eyes away when we look at their face, becoming the symbol of chastity?”

turkey-laughter-women-scandal.si

Apparently, Arinc’s remark about women not laughing in public was taken out of context. On Wednesday, he told a Turkish television station that his speech about general “good manners” did not target natural laughter but rather condemned women who “laughed artificially”. So what do women who “laugh artificially” do? The prime minister gave a detail of such a woman in the following statement below:

“[Women who laugh artificially are the ones] who go on vacation with lovers while they leave their husbands behind and can’t wait to climb poles when they see one.”

Unfortunately for Bulent Arinc, a founding member of Turkey’s Islam-rooted ruling party, his clarification didn’t appease Turkish women as they continued their smiling selfies. As a matter of fact, ABC News reports that it actually caused a social media uproar.

Things get worse for Bulent Arinc because his comments gave political opponents ammunition to use against him. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, a Turkish politician running for presidency against Arinc’s boss, Prime Minister Tayyp Erdogan, retaliated via Twitter. In his tweet, he said that Turkey needed women to laugh, as well as to hear everybody else’s laughter.

[Image via “Femen” On Youtube]

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