PM Erdogan Moves to Ban Co-habitation

TURKEY - In Brief 06 Nov 2013 by Atilla Yesilada

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We had predicted that the campaign for the March local elections will witness not only moderately higher budgetary spending, but ”social pork barreling”, namely ultra-conservative measures to appease AKP’s constituency. We were dead right. PM Erdogan told reporters that his “conservative democratic administration can’t countenance university students  cohabitating”.  He said if necessary a new law may be passed but in the interim he instructed his governors “to respond to complaints and take measures to prevent this practice”.  His comments may seem to apply to university students of opposite genders living together without the bond of legal marriage but assuming everyone is equal in the eyes of law, it is a general ban on extra-marital cohabitation.  This is a radically “Islamists" step that doesn’t even enjoy the meager fig leaf of public health concerns that last summer's alcohol sale and consumption restrictions were defended by. There is no “social utility” in banning co-habitation. Also, a law in that regard a may be unconstitutional and any implementation would severely violate the privacy of homes as representatives of the state may have to raid homes without a warrant  to catch the culprits.Briefly, on the occasion of the Reform Package, we had hoped AKP has returned to sanity. This act proves we were being naively optimistic. It must also be remembered that alcohol bans played no small role in galvanizing the Gezi Parki protests. We shall have to see whether this new instrument of intrusion into citizens’ private lives would elicit a similar effect.