This time, we invited Dr. Haldun Gülalp from Yıldız Technical University (Turkey) who presented a lecture titled “Laïcité and the Fear of Islam”.
Dr. Gülalp, originally a specialist on secularism in Turkey, is now working on secularism and laïcité in Europe with his colleagues. This lecture was based on the result of this collaborative project. In his lecture, Dr. Gülalp focused on adjudications concerning the infringement of Article 9 “the freedom of thought, conscience and belief” in the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. Based on these adjudications, he discussed laïcité in Europe and the fear of Islam. Dr. Gülalp centered his analysis on four countries and classified these four as follows from the viewpoint of laïcité as seen in their respective constitutions.
1. Greece: the constitution proclaims Greek Orthodoxy as the state religion and thus Greece is regarded as a religious state.
2. Bulgaria: in its constitution, freedom of belief is proclaimed but Bulgarian East Orthodoxy is regarded as the prevailing religion.
3. Turkey: its constitution proclaims the principle of the Republic of Turkey to be secularism and laïcité
4. France: its constitution proclaims the principle of the Republic of France to be secularism and laïcité

Of these four countries, Greece and Bulgaria received the greatest number of accusations concerning the infringement of belief in accord with Article 9 by the adjudications of the European Court of Human Rights. On the other hand, there have been few accusations against France and Turkey. In reality, however, we find great complexities in the problem of adjudications of the infringement of belief.
Prof. Gülalp provided examples of judicial cases of infringement of belief (based on Article 9) for these four countries and indicated that, in the cases of Greece and Bulgaria, we find many cases that were judged as infringements of belief according to Article 9. On the other hand, as for France and Turkey, we find few cases that were treated as the infringement of belief based on Article 9, even though plaintiffs complained to the court of infringements of belief (again, based on Article 9) by the government. Their claims were rejected by the European Court of Human Rights.
Prof. Gülalp concluded that the European Court of Human Rights has a double standard for cases concerning Islam and this is because European intellectuals regard secularism as the principle of democracy and they regard Islam as un-secularized.

(Reported by Naofumi ABE)