Human Rights Question and Turkish Islamist Political Parties

This book focuses on the use and the implementation of human rights and the European Union discourse amongst the Islamist political parties since the post-modern coup of 1997 which was very detrimental to the Islamist movement in general. Following the end of 2002, there have been some hindrances to rapprochement with the EU. For instance, The Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi, SP) began to draw an anti-EU profile arguing that the EU still wants to ‘colonise’ Turkey. I argue that this attitude is related to the EU’s indifference towards the Sunni Muslim population’s human rights violations , the decision of European Court of Human Rights on the headscarf issue and the landslide victory of the AKP. Realizing the EU will not be helpful in supporting the Sunni Muslim population’s religious freedoms, and the EU ideal of the AKP as a strong government the Felicity Party stopped supporting the entrance to EU whilst continuing to support democracy, the rule of law and human rights. The rethinking process in the Islamist identity and ideals was best reflected in the identity formation and policy orientation of the AKP as the strongest political party of Turkey committed to EU membership.