Bülent Arinc, the deputy prime minister of the Turkish government, stirred outrage among Turkish women when he announced in a recent speech that women should not laugh in public.
While speaking on the moral degradation of today’s society, Arinc said that a woman “should not laugh loudly in front of all the world and should preserve her decency at all times,” according to The Guardian. He went on to denounce television shows and the overuse of cars and cell phones, deeming them the culprits of moral decline.
The politician doesn’t seem to have stopped any women from sharing a hardy laugh with their friends. Turkish women began a trend on Twitter, posting pictures of themselves laughing, using the hashtag #direnkahkaha, which means “resist and laugh,” as reported by Buzzfeed. Several of the tweets ridicule Arinc’s comment, such as one that reads, “Stop laughing-cuz @bulent_arinc said so! #direnkahkaha.”
Below is a picture of Turkish women in a public garden, laughing during a yoga class in defiance of the deputy prime minister.
Turkish women LOL in defiance of Deputy Prime Minister http://t.co/mPiwcjrI8t #direnkahkaha #kahkaha pic.twitter.com/R3YwNsDem5
— Pixable (@pixable) July 29, 2014