Bülent Arınç

Bülent Arınç (2014)

Bülent Arınç (born May 25, 1948 in Bursa ) is a Turkish politician of the Justice and Recovery Party (AKP), of which he was one of the founders in 2001. From 2002 to 2007 he was the 22nd parliamentary president of Turkey , then from May 2009 to July 2011 he was a member of the Erdoğan II cabinet as deputy prime minister and state secretary. Before founding the AKP, he was a member of the Welfare Party and joined the Virtue Party after it was banned in 1998 .

Life

Bülent Arınç's ancestors were Greek-speaking Muslims from Crete and came to the Ottoman Empire as refugees during the time of Sultan Abdülhamid II . Arınç studied law at Manisa University and the Law Faculty of Ankara University and worked as a freelance lawyer after completing his training. He is fluent in Greek in the Cretan dialect.

Early political activity

Together with Ömer Cihat Kaya, Erol Camtakan, Eyüp Menderes and Cengiz Kantarci, Bülent Arinç (all from the Welfare Party ) was indicted on November 19, 1985 for an event in a cinema in Izmir . On January 21, 1986, all but Cengiz Kantarci were sentenced to 50 months' imprisonment under Article 163 of the Turkish Penal Code . The appeal confirmed the verdict against three defendants, but not the verdict against Bülent Arınç. On February 24, 1987, the Izmir State Security Court imposed the same sentence. In the subsequent final revision before the High Criminal Senate of the Court of Cassation , Arınç was acquitted.

During his university years, Bülent Arınç was already interested in politics; He ran for the Manisa constituency in the 1995 parliamentary elections and stood for the Welfare Party in the Turkish National Assembly. There he was appointed to the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament for his group.

After the constitutional court banned the welfare party on February 15, 1998, he switched to the virtue party . Arınç was elected to Parliament in the 1999 general election as a Manisa MP for the Virtue Party. There he became a member of the Commission for Foreign Affairs. The Constitutional Court banned the Virtue Party on June 22, 2001.

Founding of the AKP and President of Parliament

In 2001 Arınç was one of the founders of the Party for Justice and Recovery (AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi ), in which he is one of the most prominent politicians alongside Erdoğan and Gül. In the parliamentary elections on November 3, 2002 , Bülent Arınç ran for the AKP in his constituency

On November 19, 2002, he was elected President of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey . His speech on April 23, 2006, the national holiday of national sovereignty and children , attracted a great deal of attention. As a public incendiary speech it broke a political taboo against the “red lines” of the Turkish military and the Turkish principle of secularism . He avoids public appearances with his wife Münevver Arınç, whom he does not want to forbid to wear a headscarf . President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was sharply criticized when he shook hands not only with his deputy but also with his headscarf when he said goodbye on the occasion of his visit to Prague in November 2002. Speculations that Arınç would run for president himself in May 2007 were not confirmed.

Joined the Erdoğan government

On May 1, 2009, he became a member of the Erdogan II cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State, which was interpreted in the Turkish media as Erdoğan's reaction to the relatively good performance of the Islamic Happiness Party ( Saadet Partisi ) in the Turkish local elections in 2009 . Arınç is regarded as a representative of the Islamic conservative wing within the AKP and is also one of the leaders of the Islamic movement Millî Görüş . In his new role as Deputy Prime Minister, Arınç participates in the meetings of the National Security Council and is responsible for press and information policy, for the state broadcaster TRT, the Anadolu press agency , the radio and television supervisory authority RTÜK and the General Directorate for Foundations.

Bülent Arınç is considered to be one of the main people responsible and supporter of the transformation of Sophia churches into mosques , including the Hagia Sophia in Trabzon and the Hagia Sophia in Iznik .

The Turkish public prosecutor's office is investigating two members of a special anti-guerrilla unit of the Turkish army because of alleged preparations for an assassination attempt on him on December 19, 2009.

In November 2013, he relativized Erdoğan's statement that he wanted to take action against students living together out of wedlock and declared them a misunderstanding. When Erdoğan then confirmed that he had meant exactly that, Arınç asked the Prime Minister to clarify and at the same time announced that he no longer wanted to run for the AKP.

Arınç repeatedly attracted attention through sexist remarks. In the summer of 2014, Arınç hit the international media with his demand that women in Turkey should not laugh out loud in public. In response to astonished questioning, he confirmed this with the words: I believe that my remarks were true and that they find broad approval in society. I stand by my words , according to local media as of July 31, 2014. He added that his comment referred to humility in general, not a specific gender. Hundreds of people posted pictures of them laughing on social media. In July 2015, during a parliamentary session, he reprimanded HDP MP Nursel Aydoğan with the words "You as a woman, be quiet!" This also led to violent reactions in the public and on social media.

Web links

Commons : Bülent Arınç  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

1. ↑ Arınç spoke Greek with the children in the village of Ahmediye. In: Milliyet . September 23, 2012, accessed May 8, 2015 (Turkish). 
2. ↑ Bülent Arınç talking to native speakers of Greek on YouTube
3. ↑ Democratic manifesto of the President of Parliament Bülent Arınç in: Newsletter from Ankara May 2, 2006 ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) by Frank Spengler / Dirk Tröndle, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
4. ↑ Cabinet reshuffle to give AKP government new impetus Jan Senkyr, Turkey Country Report of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , May 6, 2009
5. ↑ The ACP Reasserts Its Conservative Core With Cabinet Reshuffle , May 8th 2009
6. ^ Foundation PRO ORIENTE, 1010 Vienna: PRO ORIENTE. In: www.pro-oriente.at. Retrieved September 13, 2016 . 
7. ↑ Links between 'assassins' and shady gangs under spotlight ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. SEDAT GÜNEÇ, Today's Zaman 23 December 2009  
8. ↑ Turkey is rethinking itself ( Memento from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Wendy Kristianasen, Le Monde diplomatique from February 12, 2010
9. ↑ Boris Kálnoky: Erdogan's polarization course weakens the AKP. In: The world . November 8, 2013, accessed November 12, 2013 . 
10. ^ State snooping in bedrooms , Senada Sokollu, Deutsche Welle, November 15, 2013
11. ↑ Rheinische Post, July 31, 2014: “Turkish women shouldn't laugh out loud”. Arinc defends laughing statement: I stand by my words.
12. ↑ Macho slogan from the Turkish vice-head of government: “You as a woman, be quiet!”. Accessed on September 13, 2016 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Ömer İzgi	President of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey November 19, 2002 - July 22, 2007	Köksal Toptan