İSTANBUL- Selnur Aysever, who won the lawsuit she demanded that her daughter be exempted from the compulsory religious course, said :"It is not the clergymen who will organize our lives " and that we should fight for our children.

 

Selnur Aysever,a parent of a student of 4th grade in Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ) Development Foundation Beylerbeyi Elementary School  in Üsküdar, have filed a petition with the Provincial Directorate of National Education on 5 October 2017 to demand exemption of the child from the compulsory religious course. The directorate rejected the request on 10 November 2017, stating that "you must certify that you belong to one of the Christian or Jewish religions."After the refusal, Aysever applied to the 4th Administrative Court of Istanbul.

 

About one year of evaluation process, İstanbul 4 th Administrative Court annulled the rejection procedure of İstanbul Provincial Directorate of National Education saying that the verdict is illegitimate.There was no objection to the court's decision and the matter was not moved to the Council of State.Istanbul 4th Administrative Court announced that the decision was finalized. Aysever shared the finalization of the decision on her social media account.

 

Selnur Aysever evaluated the legal process and decision of the court for Mezopotamya Agency (MA).

 

Aysever said that she was against compulsory religious education because of her belief in secular and scientific education and  when she entered 4th grade she wrote a petition to the District Directorate of National Education. Aysever said she notified the National Education Ministry with that petition that her daughter does not want to have the regelion course, and the petition was sent to National Education Ministry via school administration.Within the legal period, I received a negative response stating that I should certify that we belong to Christian or Jewesh religion in order to be held exempted from that class. So I decided to file a law suit with my attorney.

 

'MY DAUGHTER İS EXEMPTED FROM THAT CLASS LEGALLY'

 

Aysever stated that she considered tha fact that the judiciary process would be long and that they might have to go to European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), said: "We filed our lawsuit based on the 24th article of the constitution regarding 'freedom of thought and faith'. Our justification was that they taught only one relegion and one sect. Then the legal process began and we won.I did not expect that we solve this in domestic law because I was not the only one who filed a law suit but non of the other parents won. I notified the school of the court order and my daughter no longer enters the relegion classes.They could have gone to a high court in 30 days. I asked my attorney everyday to learn if they did. After 30 days, we demanded validity of the verdict.I shared the verdict a few days ago from my social media account. My daughter is now held exempted from religion classes."