Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended a rally yesterday, where during a theatrical performance, the actor enacting Mohammed the Conqueror referred to the Turkish president as “a young man who raised the Hagia Sophia and made it a mosque again.”
In fact, when Erdogan walked onto the stage, he handed over her keys to the Turkish president.
The actor also called him “a worthy successor of the conquerors,” as reported by skai.gr.
One year since the dreadful day of Hagia Sophia’s conversion into mosque
One year has passed when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Hagia Sophia would open for Muslim worship after the Council of State annulled its status as a museum.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signed the decree to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque for Muslim worship.
“It has been decided that Hagia Sophia will be placed under the supervision of the Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs) and will reopen for prayer,” the Turkish President posted on Twitter.
Hayırlı olsun. pic.twitter.com/MzP6nzn9Jc
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) July 10, 2020
Before that, the Turkish Council of State annulled the 1934 decision by which the Turkish government then in office turned Hagia Sophia in Constantinople into a museum.
The Turkish Council of State, the Supreme Administrative Court of Turkey, announced that it had annulled the 1934 government decree that turned the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople into a mosque.
It decided that it was illegal and, therefore, it paved the way for the conversion of the monument into a mosque, despite international warnings against such an action.
The Council of State accepted a request submitted by associations and annulled the 1934 government decision, Anadolu Agency, the state-run Turkish news agency, reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has proposed converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque, which has a museum status and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Erdogan’s provocative actions are getting even more intense
After Hagia Sophia, the Erdogan government converted another World Heritage Site, the Chora Church (“Church of the Holy Savior in Chora”), into a mosque in Constantinople.
The Chora Church was first converted into a mosque by the Ottomans and had become a museum in 1958, but last year the Turkish Supreme Court ruled that it should be converted into a mosque again, which had not been implemented yet.
