Liberal columnist dismissed after supporting Turkish government's Islamist steps

Mert’s articles had caused public resentment, subsequently receiving criticisms from both inside and outside the newspaper
Thursday, 10 August 2017 00:03

Nuray Mert, a Turkish academic and columnist who agrees with the government’s ban on teaching the theory of evolution in high schools, and defends the legalization of religious marriage, was fired from the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet (Republic) on Wednesday.

The decision of dismissing Nuray Mert was delivered to her by the Chairman of Cumhuriyet Foundation, Orhan Erinç. Emphasizing that the decision was made within the knowledge of the arrested executives of the newspaper, Erinç explained that Mert’s recent articles contradicted with the publication principles of Cumhuriyet.

Nuray Mert, on the other hand, made a statement on her dismissal. Underlining that even though she had known the "Kemalist" point of view of the newspaper, and so she had been finical as to the proposition, Mert expressed that "Akın Atalay (the chairman of Cumhuriyet's executive committee) said that he had made the proposal in order to enlarge the narrow vision of the newspaper. If my friends, who are in prison as a result of the government’s oppression, dismissed me from the newspaper, that would upset me so much."

Mert’s article on the ban on evolutionary theory, involving statements such as "I am, too, against considering evolution as science", had caused public resentment, subsequently opposed by another Cumhuriyet columnist, Orhan Bursalı, on Twitter as: "We finally experienced in Cumhuriyet the misery of the view considering evolution, without even a shred of knowledge, 'only a theory, not a big deal'." Attempting to respond the criticism, Mert had started another of her articles with a verse from the Quran: "Those you invoke besides God will never create a fly, even if they banded together for that purpose.". The rest of the article was garnished with various examples of ignorance on the theory of evolution.

Mert had written another article approving the government’s attempt to legalize religious marriages, allowing the muftis (mufti: local religious officer) to perform a marriage ceremony. This time, Güray Öz, Cumhuriyet’s reader representative, had criticized Mert.