Turkish analysts are sounding alarm bells over recent legislation adopted by Turkey that tightens restrictions on alcohol sales. The move has deepened worries that the country’s Islamist government is limiting individual rights in the interest of imposing Islamist norms. The legislation, which also bans alcohol advertisements, is being blasted by secular opponents for undermining what used to be Turkey’s sacrosanct division of church and state. The legislation is one among many recent cultural and legal moves that worry secularists.

Observers worry the legislation is part of a trend:

A series of developments that occurred in quick succession has sharpened social polarization in an equally short time: the restrictive law on alcohol sales and consumption that the government rushed through parliament, the “ban on kissing in public” resurrected suddenly by municipal authorities, the 14-month jail sentence for “insulting religious values” ruled against Turkish-Armenian intellectual Sevan Nisanyan, following a similar ruling against pianist Fazil Say, and the demolition of the iconic Emek Cinema amid violent street protests.

What really aggravates the situation is the fact that, barring some liberals, moderate religious intellectuals and politicians who claim to be the driving force of change in Turkey have overwhelmingly rationalized those developments or lent them support.

Turkey’s national airline not only banned the sale of alcohol to most domestic destinations and some Islamic countries, but even barred flight attendants from wearing red lipstick and nail polish. At the end last year, Turkey announced that questions pertaining to religion would for the first time be added to university entrance exams in 2013. A few weeks later Turkey’s science council announced that it would halt the publication of books that support the theory of evolution.

The AKP government was also criticized by watchdog groups this month for continuing its crackdown on press freedoms.

[Photo: Mitipencoursewear / Flickr]