ECHR Rejects Turkey’s Motion on Mandatory Religion Classes

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected Turkey’s motion on the ruling that urged Turkey to remove mandatory religion classes in the education system. 

On December 18, 2014, the Turkish government submitted a motion on the ECHR ruling issued on September 16, 2014. Turkey had requested the ruling to be reviewed. 

The aforementioned ruling was issued upon a collective complaint by Mansur Yalçın, Namık Sofuoğlu, Serap Topçu, Ali Yüce, Ali Kaplan, Eylem Onat Karataş, Hüseyin Kaya, Sevinç Ilgın, İsmail Ilgın, Cafer Aktan, Hakkı Saygı, Kemal Kuzucu, Yüksel Polat and Hasan Kılıç, saying that mandatory religion classes violated Convention Article 2 on right to education. The complaint was requested on February 2, 2011. 

“Turkey was to implement appropriate measures to remedy the situation without delay, in particular by introducing a system whereby pupils could be exempted from religion and ethics classes without their parents having to disclose their own religious or philosophical convictions,” the ruling cited. (EKN/BM)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.