{"id":41811,"date":"2026-02-26T03:04:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T03:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=41811"},"modified":"2026-02-26T03:04:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T03:04:33","slug":"erdogan-rejects-opposition-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=41811","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan rejects opposition criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday defended a directive introducing Ramazan-related activities in public schools, rejecting criticism from opponents who said the move undermined Turkey&#8217;s secular principles.<\/p>\n<p>Education Minister Yusuf Tekin issued a circular ordering schools from preschool to high school nationwide to organise religious activities during the Muslim holy month.<\/p>\n<p>Critics say that has opened a fault-line in Turkey, a constitutionally secular state. They accuse the government of seeking to Islamise the education system and erode the separation of religion and state.<\/p>\n<p>Erdogan told lawmakers from his Islamic-rooted AKP party in parliament: &#8220;What has been done is right, appropriate, lawful, and &#8230; a highly beneficial service that reflects the sentiments of our nation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Schools would organise discussion programmes and fast-breaking dinners aimed at strengthening school-family cooperation, he said, adding that participation would be voluntary.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday defended a directive introducing Ramazan-related activities in public schools, rejecting criticism from opponents who said the move undermined Turkey&#8217;s secular principles. Education Minister Yusuf Tekin issued a circular ordering schools from preschool to high school nationwide to organise religious activities during the Muslim holy month. Critics say that has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}