TUNCELI, Turkey: The Washington Times reported that remote and poor Tunceli has all the ingredients of a typical rural town in eastern Turkey, except that Tunceli is anything but typical.

Most of its people are Alevis (Shi'ites).

Men, women and children attend the Thursday meeting organized by the Alevis. The ceremony ends with the religious leader, in tears, describing the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him), the grandson of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his pure progeny).

Persecuted under the Ottoman Empire, most Alevis remain loyal to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's secularist revolution of the 1920s. But they have long had doubts about the nature of Turkey's secularism, and those doubts are beginning to be converted into action.

In December, Izzettin Dogan, head of Turkey's most influential Alevi group, took the Education Ministry to court over obligatory religious classes in school, which he says teach only other school of thought.

"We had no choice," he said. "At least we could talk to previous governments. With the present government, all contact has been lost."

In an apparent effort to stave off further legal challenges, Education Minister Huseyin Celik announced in February that the curriculum had been changed to include a discussion of Alevi beliefs.