News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by claudius on Sunday June 02, 2013 @07:52AM (#5808168)
> Muslim democratic state.

There are very, very few religious democracies, and if you only consider those both officially and effectively religious, I won’t be able to name a single one.

Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by nsns on Sunday June 02, 2013 @08:48AM (#5808286)
There's that extremely influential one, whose currency states "in god we trust".
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by uh_oh on Sunday June 02, 2013 @08:23AM (#5808232)
Turkey was famously founded as a secular state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9#Turkey). Things may have changed, but still ... "Muslim" probably just refers to the fact that most people living there are muslim.
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by DamnYuppie on Sunday June 02, 2013 @10:56AM (#5808717)
I believe this is still a large portion this is Greek Orthodox Christians as well. Yet I do believe the majority are indeed Muslims.
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by dodyg on Sunday June 02, 2013 @09:20AM (#5808391)
Indonesia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancasila_(politics)

In Indonesia, you are not allowed to be atheist. You must declare yourself as a follower of one of the 6 state sanctioned religions.

Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by pessimizer on Sunday June 02, 2013 @08:34AM (#5808253)
Turkey isn't officially a Muslim state, it's Muslim by vast majority. It's starting to become effectively religious.
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by markdown on Sunday June 02, 2013 @09:01AM (#5808335)
> I won’t be able to name a single one.

UK?

Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by desas on Sunday June 02, 2013 @12:36PM (#5809090)
officially religious but not effectively.
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by tome on Sunday June 02, 2013 @12:27PM (#5809049)
The UK is a democracy with a state religion and a monarch. Weird.
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by arrrg on Sunday June 02, 2013 @11:00AM (#5808738)
I think this description was more akin to describing the USA or Germany as “Christian democratic states” as a majority in both of those are Christians. It doesn’t mean that Christianity is the state religion or something.

Turkey has been a successful majority Muslim but very secular and democratic state for a very long time. Maybe that’s changing …

(Ah, decisions, decisions. Sometimes I think the EU should have accelerated making a move on letting Turkey join. There are substantial risks associated with that, sure, but I also think that the EU would have had a significant chance of changing the trajectory Turkey is on.)

Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by vidarh on Sunday June 02, 2013 @12:26PM (#5809044)
> Turkey has been a successful majority Muslim but very secular and democratic state for a very long time. Maybe that’s changing …

Uhm. Military coups in: 1960, 1971, 1980, as well as substantial intervention in the succession of power in 1997 that many considers a coup.

The secular nature of the Turkish state has largely remained as secular as it is because the Turkish military has a tendency to conduct coups whenever they deem someone is trying to introduce religiously motivated laws, coupled with a legal system that is frequently used to shut down political parties that mix politics and religion.

Turkey does not exactly have a very solid democratic tradition yet.

We have yet to see if the "Memorandum" issued in 1997 and allowing the current government is a sign the military has softened it's stance, but it's very clear that so far at least, the elected Turkish governments serve at the mercy of the military.

Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by cdash on Sunday June 02, 2013 @12:57PM (#5809191)
The Turkish military is much weaker than it used to be with the government having thrown many of its top leaders into prison accusing them of planning yet another coup and replacing with people that are sided with Erdogan. Still, it has a long history of stepping in if secularism is threatened so it will be interesting to see what happens in the future if Erdogan is able to stay in power and keep on implementing more and more religious policies.
Re:What is Happening in Istanbul? by arrrg on Sunday June 02, 2013 @02:57PM (#5809641)
Eh. Close enough, honestly.