Via ANSAmed:

Islamic thinker Omer Tugrul Inancer in a TV program exhorted pregnant women not to show themselves in public, sparking protests from secular Turks and opposition politicians, Hurriyet online reported.

”It is against our civilization to use fanfare to announce a pregnancy. Pregnant women also should not go around in public with those bellies. It’s not aesthetic”, Inancer said on public TRT 1 TV channel. ”After seven or eight months, future mothers should only leave the house by car with their husbands to get some fresh air, and only in the evening. Instead we see them all over television. It’s unpleasant. This is not realism, it’s immorality”. The program presenter thanked him with ”May God listen to you”. Secular Turks immediately took to social media, with #Omer Tugrul Inancer trending instantly.

Activists have called for a protest on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue, near Taksim Square, with a pillow under their clothes in solidarity with pregnant women. ”They must stop interfering with women in this country. If they could, they would rule on the very air they breathe”, thundered Aylin Nazliaka, a Social Democrat.