social media claim

10 entries

Pages dealing with claims that circulate only on social media and have never entered any official record.

The claim that his "roots are abroad" and that he is linked to foreign powers

The accusation at the centre of the dispute with Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu is a single sentence: "his roots are abroad". Alparslan Kuytul's answer begins the same way — his mother is known, his father is known, the people he meets are known — and it ends by calling the accuser into a mutual curse. To this day not one document has been produced.

Unfounded

The "He said July 15 was theatre" claim

The remark really was made; but what was meant is not that there was no coup or that the government staged it, rather the view that the coup plotters were provoked and lured into a trap.

Out of context

The "On the Same Line as the Gülen Community" Claim

On 4 February 2016 Kuytul read Gülen's Asharq al-Awsat interview out from the newspaper and objected to its arguments one by one; the division comes down to whether an Islamic state is necessary.

Unfounded

The "He Criticised Gülen Only After 15 July" Claim

The criticism did not begin after 15 July 2016. Records dated 1998, 2005, 2014 and February 2016 belong to the years when the movement was at its strongest.

Unfounded

The "He Supported the Turkish Olympiads" Claim

He did not support them; he objected to them. And he did so on 16 February 2014, at the time when the event was at its most splendid and hardest to criticise, giving his reasons as well.

Unfounded

The claim that he declared those who go into the army, police officers and civil servants to be unbelievers

These words are not Kuytul's but those of takfirist circles who came to his talks and tried to influence young people; he listed those views one by one and rejected them, giving his reasons.

Unfounded

The claim that he declared those who vote unbelievers

He does not vote himself; but not only has he never called those who vote unbelievers, he is the one who told those who called them unbelievers: "do not talk like this" — saying that an act is wrong is not the same as calling it unbelief.

Unfounded

The "He Compared Turkey to East Turkestan" Claim

The comparison really was made; what was dropped in the retelling was its grounds, which rested not on a single tarawih ban but on a list of incidents running from 2014 to 2020.

Out of context

The "He Does Not Know the Plague Hadith" Claim

He had explained the hadith himself in his own talks. The hadith forbids changing city; he advised no one to change city. And he has no objection to the hadith that commands distance either.

Unfounded

The claim that "he did not come out into the squares against the coup"

It is true that they did not join the democracy vigils. But on 21 July 2016 they held an anti-coup gathering in a public square with hundreds of people; the objection was not to opposing the coup but to the name given to the protest.

Partly true

The claim that his "roots are abroad" and that he is linked to foreign powers

The "He said July 15 was theatre" claim

The "On the Same Line as the Gülen Community" Claim

The "He Criticised Gülen Only After 15 July" Claim

The "He Supported the Turkish Olympiads" Claim

The claim that he declared those who go into the army, police officers and civil servants to be unbelievers

The claim that he declared those who vote unbelievers

The "He Compared Turkey to East Turkestan" Claim

The "He Does Not Know the Plague Hadith" Claim

The claim that "he did not come out into the squares against the coup"

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