Turkey's Women Protest With 'Laughing' Selfie After Official Says, 'Chastity Is Important', Laughing 'Indecent Behavior': It looks like the women in Turkey have the last laugh after the Deputy Prime Minister says Bulent Arinc said that woman should not laugh in public, because there is a "moral corruption" in the country and "Chastity is so important." He added in the speech, "She (woman) will not laugh in public."

As preposterous as that sounds, women in Turkey are sending smiling selfie's on social media to protest the deputy prime minister's reference to smiling as adding to moral corruption. "Kahkaha" is the Turkish word for laughter and #direnkahkaha means 'resist laughter'. About 300,000 women have flocked to twitter and Instagram with the #kahkaha hashtag.

Writer and political commentator Ece Temelkuran has about a million followers on Twitter, "It was an extremely outrageous and conservative statement," referring to the Arinc statement. Temelkuran was one of the first people to tweet a smiling selfie. With so many followers on social media, she urged other women to follow her social media call to action. "My whole timeline was full of women laughing - which was extraordinary, and kind of beautiful," she told the media.

In a similar post, 23-year-old Hazal Naz Besleyici said that she if free to do what she wants and the government cannot tell her what to do.

The men joined in the social media furor, taking the Bulent Arinc comment as appalling. Fatih Portakal, Turkish TV presenter tweeted "Oh God, let this be just a joke," adding, "If women can't laugh in public, then men should not cry in public."

While the 'thou shall not laugh in public' comment was received poorly by the Turkish people, one person tweeted saying Arinc was making attempts to keep up Turkey's traditional culture and moral values. Arinc also said in his speech, that men should deviate from womanizing, and TV should not pave the way or teens into sex addiction.