Women in Turkey have the last LAUGH

Twitter broke out in a collective grin as hundreds of women posted pictures of themselves laughing. But, they weren’t happy. They were smiling in defiance of the deputy Prime Minister, Bülent Arinç, who in a speech to mark Eid al-Fitr on Monday said women should not laugh in public.

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Their photos were accompanied by the hashtags #kahkaha (laugh) and #direnkahkaha (resist, laugh). Estimates suggest over 300,000 comments and pictures were posted with the hashtags.

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In a speech Monday, Bulent Arinc complained that modern society was in moral decline — and then loosely explained that women who laugh out loud were part of the ethics erosion. “Chastity is so important. It is not only a name. It is an ornament for both women and men,” he said. Arinc explained: “(A woman) will know what is haram and not haram. She will not laugh in public. She will not be inviting in her attitudes and will protect her chasteness.”

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The minister later defended his speech, claiming his remark was taken out of context. On Wednesday, he said that his speech was about general “good manners”.

He did not mean to target natural laughter, but rather condemned women who “laugh artificially” — such as women “who go for a vacation with their lovers while leaving their husbands behind and can't wait to climb poles when they see one,” he said.

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Turkish men also took to social media to express their solidarity. “The men of a country in which women are not allowed to laugh are cowards”, tweeted one user.