Istanbul, Turkey – Turkey’s top court on Thursday turned down a plea to open the Hagia Sofia, an Istanbul landmark that is now a museum after serving as both a church and a mosque over its long history, for Muslim worshipping. The Constitutional Court rejected an association’s demand that the Hagia Sofia be opened for Muslim prayers on “non-competence” grounds, indicating it was not the proper instance to allow any change, the official Anadolu news agency reported. ADVERTISEMENTIn its plea, the association had claimed that barring prayers at Hagia Sofia was breaching the right to freedom of expression and conscience. The Hagia Sofa was turned into a museum accessible to all by the secular founders of modern Turkey in the 1930s. When Ottoman forces under Sultan Mehmet II conquered the city in 1453 he ordered the immediate conversion of the Hagia Sofia into a mosque.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer September 13, 2018 13:30 UTC