Tensions escalated in the occupied north over the use of Islamic headscarves in secondary education after unidentified individuals placed a banner outside the Turkish Cypriot Teachers’ Union (KTÖS) headquarters early Wednesday.
The banner, discovered at 5:45 a.m., contained a message attributed to Turkish national anthem composer Mehmet Akif Ersoy: “My sister’s headscarf bothers the eyes of the wretched! I apologise for spitting, but I swear to God I will spit in their faces!”
This development follows incidents at Irsen Kucuk Secondary School and Bekirpasa High School where female students wearing headscarves were reportedly barred from examinations for violating school uniform regulations.
In response, KTÖS Secretary-General Burak Mavis countered with a reference to a 1922 speech by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: “When ideas are filled with meaningless, illogical, useless and perhaps harmful sophistries, then these ideas are diseased. When social life is filled with dogmas and traditions far from reason, humanity and all meaning, then it becomes paralysed.”
Turkish Cypriot educational unions staged a protest outside the “Turkish Embassy” in northern Nicosia, laying a black wreath in symbolic opposition to what they describe as external interference in educational policies.
Selma Eylem, president of the Turkish Cypriot Secondary Education Teachers’ Union (KTOEÖS), stated that “the imposition of political Islam continues, disregarding regulations, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the right of other children to education. We will not allow it. Our society existed and will continue to exist with its values, secular education and social structure.”
KTOEÖS Secretary-General Tahir Gokcebel claimed six individuals allegedly working at the “embassy” intervened at the school, presenting themselves as parents of the female students. “There is an organised effort by the embassy to interfere in educational institutions. Principals and deputy principals are now afraid to go to school,” he said.
Occupied northern Cyprus, recognised only by Turkey, has historically maintained secular educational policies aligned with the Turkish system established under Ataturk’s reforms, though religious influences have increased in recent years.
Speaking directly to “Ambassador” Ali Murat Basçeri, Mavis emphasised: “Do not forget that you came here as an ambassador of the republic that Ataturk founded,” adding that educators would continue protecting children from manipulation.
Read more:
