page_title: Binali Yıldırım
section_title: Veil controversy
hierarchical_section_title: Binali Yıldırım / Controversies / Veil controversy
caption_attribution_description: English: Interview with Turkish politician Binali Yıldırım
context_page_description: Binali Yıldırım is a Turkish politician who served as the 27th and last Prime Minister of Turkey from 2016 to 2018 and Speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2018 to 2019. He was Leader of the Justice and Development Party from 2016 to 2017, then becoming parliamentary leader until 2018.
  Yıldırım served as chairman of the board of Directors of İstanbul Fast Ferries Company from 1994 to 2000 before being elected as an AKP Member of Parliament for İstanbul's first electoral district during the 2002 general election. He was appointed as Minister of Transport by Prime Minister Abdullah Gül and continued in office after Erdoğan became Prime Minister in 2003. As Transport Minister, he presided over numerous projects such as Marmaray, high-speed rail lines and an expansion in the country's airport and road facilities, though received heavy criticism and calls for his resignation following the Pamukova train derailment in 2004. In 2011, the portfolios of Maritime and Communications were merged with the Ministry of Transport, with Yıldırım becoming the Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication.
context_section_description: In 2006, Yıldırım was subject to criticism by secularists in Turkey over allegations that he preferred veiled women or men with veiled wives when appointing bureaucrats to positions within the Ministry of Transport. The criticism spread to the AKP government as a whole and to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after Durmuş Yılmaz, whose wife wore a headscarf, was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey. In response to the criticism, Yıldırım denied the claims of discrimination and stated that it was against the party's program, calling for a non-veiled candidate to come forward so that he could appoint her to 'any' bureaucratic position.
caption: Yıldırım speaking at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 27 May 2014
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "7559/200", "Image YResolution": "7559/200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Live Photo Gallery14.0.8117.416", "Image DateTime": "2016:06:01 23:59:05", "Image ExifOffset": "2256", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "E359035F7F30411E82F879C8813A9A34", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}