The claim that "he hoped for deliverance from the coup"

Where did the claim come from?

Its source is one single thing: a clip of a few seconds cut from the statement made on the night of 15 July 2016. How the clip was put together is the subject of a separate heading — the claim that he said "may it be blessed" about the coup. This page deals not with the clipping but with the whole of the stance taken that week. For a person's view of an event is understood not from a single sentence but from the sum of what he said on the same subject.

Kuytul himself describes this editing as follows:

"A few seconds are taken from my speech, and a headline is put on it as though I had hoped for deliverance from the coup, as though I had prayed for the coup."

That same night: a warning, not an expectation

Someone who hopes to benefit from a coup does not tell his listeners to be prepared while the outcome is still unknown. What occurs in the speech on the night of 15 July is this: that hundreds of thousands of people might be taken into custody, "perhaps we too will be among them", "what will happen after this is dark", "everyone must be ready for anything".

These are the sentences not of an expectation of gain but of an oncoming wave of repression. And indeed Kuytul himself was taken into custody on 30 January 2018.

What it cost to object that night

At 11.30 p.m. the picture was this: TRT's broadcast had been cut, nobody knew where the President was, and a statement had been made in the name of the General Staff. The entire public believed the coup was being carried out within the army's chain of command, that is, by the whole of the Armed Forces.

Kuytul believed so too. Even so, in that same broadcast he said he did not consent to the coup. To say that when it was not known who would be in power an hour later is not behaviour that can be explained by a calculation of advantage.

It did not stop with that night

The stance does not consist of a single statement:

• About three hours after the coup attempt, the first written message rejecting the coup was shared.
• On Thursday 21 July 2016, an anti-coup press statement attended by hundreds of people was held. Kuytul spoke there for about half an hour.

The choice not to take part in the "democracy vigils" in the squares has been discussed separately; that heading is here: the claim that "he did not come out into the squares against the coup".

The reasons of principle

The ground of the opposition to coups is not a political preference but a chain of reasons set out openly. The reasons he listed in an interview given in August 2016, about twenty-five days after the coup attempt, are these:

• It is a usurpation of right. Society elected them; to turn the weapon the people entrusted to you against those they elected is to take authority by force.
• It is contrary to the law of social change. The condition of a society changes when that society changes itself; not by weapons.
• It cannot be reconciled with the prophetic method. The prophets did not seize power and choose the path of a coup; they conveyed the message and raised up people.
• It harms Islamic movements. After every coup an oppressive order is established, Islamic activity is banned and innocent people go to prison.

The last point also turns the logic of the claim on its head: someone who thinks that what a coup will bring to Islamic work is harm cannot be hoping for deliverance from that coup.

Why "Unfounded"?

Because there is no part of the claim that is true. What we have is not a matter of priorities or a sentence open to interpretation, but sentences in the recording of that same night which say the exact opposite of the claim. The only support left for it is a few seconds cut out of that recording.