Caferi Initiative
The Caferis, Turkey's principal Shi'a community of Azeri-Iranian origin, concentrated mostly in the eastern part of the country and Istanbul, do not face restrictions on their religious freedoms. They build and operate their own mosques and appoint their own imams, but as with the Alevis, their places of worship have no legal status and receive no support from the Diyanet.
On December 27, 2009, more than thousand members of the Caferi community gathered for the 1370th anniversary of the events in which Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hüseyin bin Ali and 72 others became a martyr in Karbala. The leader of this community, Selahattin Özgündüz, held a speech about the importance of the democratic initiative.
On October 09, 2010, the Presidency of Religious Affairs prepared two separate "ilmihal" (an Islamic version of a catechism) for the Caferi and Shafi`i communities in Turkey.
In 2010, Erdoğan became the first prime minister of Turkey to attend a ceremony organized to commemorate the tragedy at Karbala.
Read more about this topic: Democratic Initiative, Religious Groups
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