Turkey
Turkey is the only Muslim country located in the Middle East (and one of two along with Israel) that has abolished polygamy, which was officially criminalized with the adoption of the Turkish Civil Code in 1926, a milestone in Atatürk's secularist reforms. Penalties for illegal polygamy are up to 5 years imprisonment. Turkey has long been known for its promotion of secularism, and has continued to introduce measures that have placed even stricter bars on polygamy, also by the ruling moderate Islamist AK Parti as well. The most recent prohibition act, passed in March 2009, by the AK Parti, effectively banned polygamists from entering or living in the country.
In the Kurdish populated South East the practice still exists.
An advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the ruling moderate Islamist AK Parti, Ali Yüksel, is reportedly polygamous and has made public his intention to take a fourth wife which caused outrage from the Turkish media and also from the AK Parti.
Read more about this topic: Polygyny
Famous quotes containing the word turkey:
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A turkey is more occult and awful than all the angels and archangels. In so far as God has partly revealed to us an angelic world, he has partly told us what an angel means. But God has never told us what a turkey means. And if you go and stare at a live turkey for an hour or two, you will find by the end of it that the enigma has rather increased than diminished.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In the land of turkeys in turkey weather
At the base of the statue, we go round and round.
What a beautiful history, beautiful surprise!
Monsieur is on horseback. The horse is covered with mice.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)