ABSTRACT

Our aim in this chapter is to focus on two paradoxes that emerge from a survey that was conducted by Hakan Yılmaz (2006) 1 concerning the attitudes of Turkey’s constituency with regards to basic rights. The first paradox is as follows. On the one hand, Turkey’s inhabitants, by a rate of 51 percent, think that ‘equality before the law’ is by far the most important right they want to keep, compared to freedom of faith and religion (20 percent), electoral rights (10 percent), freedom of association (6 percent), and property rights (5 percent). On the other hand though, most do not seem ready to recognize the inviolability of others’ rights. Hence, a cluster analysis over a series of questions regarding the inviolability of rights, which are perceived to be ‘others’ rights’, show that a great majority of the respondents, close to 65 percent, reported that those rights can be totally suppressed by the state, if the state deems that it is required to do so. Only 35 percent of the respondents declared that the state should in no way violate ‘others’ rights’.