Booze ban stirs unease in Turkey

ANKARA - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's defence of a partial ban on alcohol sales has deepened fears among critics that he aims to turn Turkey into an Islamic state.

The ban comes at a time of growing tension between Erdogan's government, which has just started European Union membership talks, and a military, secular and academic establishment that distrusts the motives of a leader with roots in political Islam.

Nearly all Turks are at least nominally Muslim but the country's secular system keeps religion on a tight rein and has long fostered a tolerant attitude towards alcohol despite the Koran's teaching that it is sinful.

Now local councils controlled by Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have begun banning the sale of alcohol in restaurants they run.

"As state institutions, the municipalities should never set a bad example ... This should not be a matter for discussion," Erdogan said last week, defending the local councils' moves.

Erdogan noted that Turks could still drink freely in privately owned establishments and he dismissed fears that new rules might encourage municipalities to drive drinkers into effective ghettos on the outskirts of towns and cities.

A pious Muslim himself, Erdogan said alcohol was to blame for 80 per cent of traffic accidents in Turkey - though the secularist-minded Milliyet daily, quoting police statistics, said at the weekend the real figure was less than one per cent.

Nobody suggests Turkey, a European Union candidate, is set to follow Iran or Saudi Arabia in proscribing alcohol.

But secularists say it is another example of AKP disregard for Turkish tradition in favour of an Islamist agenda.

They point out that modern Turkey's revered founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was famed for his love of raki, the potent, aniseed-flavoured national tipple. For many Turks, easy access to alcohol is bound up with the country's modernisation.

"This is about freedom of choice .... No public authority has the right to tell people how to live their private life," lawyer Vedat Ahsen Cosar, head of the Ankara Bar Association, told NTV commercial television.

"The AKP is trying to lift restrictions on women wearing the (Islamic-style) headscarf in universities in the name of personal freedom. But they are trying to limit other people's freedoms. This smacks of double standards," he said.

The AKP denies having a secret Islamist agenda and says it is a conservative party of family values. Since sweeping to power in 2002, it has launched a swathe of liberal reforms which opened the way to long-delayed EU entry talks in October.

But critics remain deeply suspicious. On the alcohol issue, for example, they say taxes imposed by the AKP mean beer, wine and many spirits are now costlier in Turkey than in Britain.

"There is creeping Islamisation ... though there are still certain political and sociological checks on this process," said Ali Tekin of Ankara's Bilkent University, referring above all to Turkey's staunchly secular military.

The alcohol spat follows other comments by Erdogan which have raised eyebrows among secularists and also EU diplomats.

When the European Court of Human Rights recently upheld Turkey's headscarf ban -- to the delight of Turkish secularists and the AKP's dismay -- Erdogan suggested that the court consult Islamic scholars before passing judgement on religious matters.

Tekin said the AKP was increasingly able to ignore opposition in the military -which ousted an Islamist-led government as recently as 1997 - because of reforms demanded by the EU asserting civilian control over the generals.

- REUTERS