A full-time imam will be appointed to Turkey’s Hagia Sophia, according to Turkish news sources.
The appointment is likely to be controversial, especially with the Greek government and those who fear Turkey is becoming “Islamised”. In July, the Greek foreign minister called the reintroduction of Koran readings in Hagia Sophia, for the first time since 1935, “regressive”. In response, the Turkish Foreign Ministry described Greek criticisms as “unacceptable”.
Hagia Sophia symbolises Turkey’s fraught religious history. For nearly a thousand years after its construction in 537, it was the world’s largest cathedral.
In 1453, after the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire, it became a mosque. In 1935, as Turkey embarked on a secularisation programme, it was turned into a museum.
The building’s increasingly Islamic identity comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan implements policies which critics have described as Islamisation.
Erdoğan says he is committed to secularism, but his administration has lifted a ban on headscarves and attempted to restrict alcohol sales.
Hagia Sophia’s new imam will be able to lead prayers only in a designated area just outside the building.
Some Turkish Muslims have publicly called for Hagia Sophia to return to its pre-1935 function as a place of worship.
In July, a Greek MEP, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, suggested in a written question to the European Commission that the Turkish authorities were “seeking to impose a Muslim identity on this monument and turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque”.
Thousands of Muslim demonstrators have prayed outside the building, and chanted, “Let the chains break, open Hagia Sophia.”
A petition against the transformation of Hagia Sophia into a mosque has gained more than 30,000 signatures.
Plea to ICC to investigate ISIS fighters from Europe
Lord Alton of Liverpool has written with others to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, asking it to reconsider its decision not to initiate investigations into atrocities committed by foreign ISIS fighters.
An estimated 3,700 ISIS fighters are thought to be from Britain, France, Germany and Belgium, which means that the ICC has jurisdiction over them. ISIS uses them because of “their knowledge of the language, customs and culture” of European countries where they are planning attacks.
The letter is also signed by a Dutch and a Swedish politician and the legal council of ADF International, an organisation which campaigners for “the right of people to freely live out their faith”.
It points out that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians and Yazidi in Syria and Iraq.
The letter also cites the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which earlier this month called on the ICC to revisit its decision, and to “expeditiously recognise your jurisdiction over the perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria and Iraq”.
Boy, 9, accused of blasphemy
A nine-year-old child and his mother have narrowly escaped a death sentence under Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws.
The boy, known only as Inzam, was at school when he was accused of burning a Koran last month. He and his mother were arrested the following day without any investigation or evidence. They were released later following community tension and pressure from local politicians and the British Pakistani Christian Association.
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