Abdullah Gül
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Abdullah Gül is a Turkish politician who served as the 11th president of Turkey, in office from 2007 to 2014. He previously served for four months as Prime Minister from 2002 to 2003, and concurrently served as both Deputy Prime Minister and as Foreign Minister between 2003 and 2007. He is currently a member of the Advisory Panel for the President of the Islamic Development Bank.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Gül in the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., 2003
11th President Abdullah Gül
Gül with U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, March 2008
Secularism in Turkey
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In Turkey, secularism or laicism was first introduced with the 1928 amendment of the Constitution of 1924, which removed the provision declaring that the "Religion of the State is Islam", and with the later reforms of Turkey's first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which set the administrative and political requirements to create a modern, democratic, secular state, aligned with Kemalism.
The Republic Protests took place in 2007 in support of the Kemalist ethos, avowing state secularism, against the perceived Islamization of Turkey under the ruling Justice and Development Party.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promotes the Islamization in Turkey, which allows women to choose to wear hijabs in public.