Just holding elections is not enough unless wide respect of civil rights and pluralism principles is upheld. Unfortunately, Turkey lags behind developed societies in embracing religious tolerance and multiculturalism. The Turkish state continues to deny its people of Alawite origin the right to exercise their faith without being subjugated by the majority Sunni population.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Izzettin Dogan, the chairman of the Cem Foundation, a major umbrella organization for Alawites in this country, compared Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs to “a demon with unbelievable powers” and claimed that the head of this directorate is “Turkey’s real prime minister.”

“They’re governing Turkey through mosques,” said Dogan. “With 117,000 mosques and employing nearly 133,000 personnel, they’re orchestrating religion down to the village level.”

Dogan was reacting strongly to a recent statement by the Turkish Parliament’s speaker saying, “Alawites, which is a subgroup of Islam, can not have a place of worship other than mosques or prayer halls, which are common places of worship of Islam.” Huseyin Aygun, Republican People’s Party deputy from Tunceli, filed a lawsuit against the Speaker’s office when his request to open a cemevi — a place of worship for Alevites people — in the Parliamentary compound was rejected.