Hunting Party

The target is not a fowl, rather it is a Political Party in Turkey. Turkey, a well-established democracy, is currently investigating eliminating yet another political party from participating in their multi-party elections. The party under investigation is for incorporating, and potentially enabling Islamist activities.

One of the major reasons why the elimination is occurring is because Turkey is a secular country, with an incredibly strict anti-religious involvement in government. Thus it is the “duty” of the country to ban political parties that would attempt to instate religious activities or affiliations into the government.

 Yet, is this democratically just? To eliminate a party due to an affiliation? The argument against it would be that if the people want a religious affiliation, they would vote for it. There would be no need to ban the party, if the government was not worried that people would vote for it. But people are voting for it. There are some Turkish citizens that want the presence of Islam to exist in the government, so why should their beliefs be silenced?

 The banning of political parties is not new. Western countries have this same practice. Germany for example, has banned a political party from ever running: the Nazi party. This is for both fear and respect that this party has been banned. What are the reasons for the Turkish party being banned? Essentially, the constitution.