I never paid much attention to Al Jazeera news until we began preparing to move to the Middle East. I
have come to find, as our Regional Coordinator Patrick says, that AJE is far superior in world news reporting than CNN or other western news outlets. (by the way, that's two mentions of our RC's in the last 2 posts--I got to make more friends ;) !)
Before bed tonight, I was scrolling through various news headlines, and ended up on AJE where I found this article about a "Kiss Protest". Apparently, Turkey continues to battle over freedom of expression and fears of the Islamist ruling party enforcing stricter Islamic ideals on public life. In this particular instance, a couple was seen kissing on a subway platform on the security video feed, which prompted a call from the ruling party for more "moral" behavior.
Upset by this "moral" restriction, 100 or more staged the "Kiss Protest" at the subway station. These individuals with moderate or liberal views on the matter were confronted by those favoring the strict position of the ruling party - apparently the kissers had to be separated from the non-kissers, but the article doesn't say if the kissers had to be separated from each other.
This is just the latest example of an ongoing struggle within the Middle East: while democratic ideals are attractive, there are real battles over the extent to which freedom of expression and freedom of choice can be pursued.
 |
| picture from the AJE story linked in this post |
Before bed tonight, I was scrolling through various news headlines, and ended up on AJE where I found this article about a "Kiss Protest". Apparently, Turkey continues to battle over freedom of expression and fears of the Islamist ruling party enforcing stricter Islamic ideals on public life. In this particular instance, a couple was seen kissing on a subway platform on the security video feed, which prompted a call from the ruling party for more "moral" behavior.
Upset by this "moral" restriction, 100 or more staged the "Kiss Protest" at the subway station. These individuals with moderate or liberal views on the matter were confronted by those favoring the strict position of the ruling party - apparently the kissers had to be separated from the non-kissers, but the article doesn't say if the kissers had to be separated from each other.
This is just the latest example of an ongoing struggle within the Middle East: while democratic ideals are attractive, there are real battles over the extent to which freedom of expression and freedom of choice can be pursued.
No comments:
Post a Comment