Terrorism and Criminal Organisation Accusations
The claim that an ISIS suspect attended the talks and that this shows a connection
Distorted
Claim
Fact
The subject is the 2018 terrorism file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018 and continued with the arrest of 8 February 2018. A police letter in that file, made public by the lawyer Adem Tural in September 2018, records that there was information that certain persons connected with conflict zones had also taken an interest in the talks held within the foundation. In the news reports this line turned into the headline "ISIS connection".
The talks are open to everyone, and it is not possible to choose who walks into the hall. A listener's views cannot be laid at the door of the person giving the lesson — least of all when that lesson was given in order to refute those very views.
The recorded relationship between Kuytul and ISIS runs in exactly the opposite direction to the claim:
- He has been threatened many times for criticising the organisation, and police officers asked him whether he wanted protection.
- His name appeared on the death list in the magazine ISIS published online.
- The person said to have "turned out to be his student" is the person who said in his statement to the police that he had come to Adana to assassinate Kuytul.
The same police letter makes two further findings immediately before the sentence at issue: that there are statements by Kuytul to the effect that he does not espouse the Salafi and takfiri outlook and does not consider it right to go to conflict zones. And the end of the paragraph is this: that no connection was found between the foundation in question and any terrorist organisation.
When he was asked about the news story, his answer was short:
"If he attended our talks, what is that to me? Our stance and our views are plain enough."
Why is this labelled "Distorted"?
The part that is true is this: such a line really does appear in the document, and it is possible that such a person attended the talks.
But this is not a failing. Attending is not a connection; a connection is a two-sided and deliberate relationship. The distortion lies where a one-way attendance is presented as an organisational tie.
Where did the line the claim rests on come from?
The sentence is not information found by a reporter; it comes from inside the investigation file opened by the operation of 30 January 2018. The letter from the Counter-Terrorism Department in that file was made public in September 2018 by Kuytul's lawyer Adem Tural. The letter recorded that there was information that certain persons connected with conflict zones had also taken an interest in the talks held within the foundation. That one line was all that became news.
The rest of the same sentence
There are no items or headings in the document; the expression at issue stands in the middle of a single sentence. That sentence begins with the findings listed about Kuytul: that in his talks published in open sources he made statements against secularism and democracy, that he frequently criticised the President, the government and state policies, and that he does not espouse the Salafi and takfiri outlook and does not consider it right to go to conflict zones. Only after this comes the information that an interest was taken in the talks. And this is where the sentence ends: that no connection was found between the foundation in question and any terrorist organisation.
What became news is the half-line pulled out of the middle of this sentence.
The document writes that its own information is not evidence
There is one more note that gets skipped. The information conveyed comes from the reply of the Intelligence Department, and the letter states separately that this information was obtained under Additional Article 7 of the Police Powers Act and cannot be used as legal evidence unless it is independently substantiated. That is, the document itself says that the information within it cannot count as evidence on its own. The news reports presented it directly as evidence.
The record goes back years
The position the police identified is not a defence produced in 2018. In the lesson series "The Boundary of Faith and Unbelief", which began on 26 March 2012, Kuytul dealt with takfirism over eleven parts and some twenty-five hours, setting out the harm it does:
"At this moment a set of plans and projects is being applied to the Muslim world to make Muslims declare one another unbelievers. A takfiri mentality is being instilled. Because they want Muslims to kill one another and war to break out among them."
His warning about conflict zones belongs to the same years: he said these zones were traps set up to draw in sincere young people and destroy them there, and he opposed anyone going.
The record on the ISIS side
A claim of connection ought to leave a trace on the other side as well. The trace on the ISIS side is this: Kuytul's name appeared on the death list in the magazine the organisation published online, threats came from the organisation many times, and police officers asked him whether he wanted protection. As for the person said to have "turned out to be his student", he is the one who said in his statement to the police that he had come to Adana to assassinate Kuytul.
How is a "connection" established in a terrorism file?
This is the real point. A connection is a two-sided and deliberate relationship, and what is looked for is well known: instructions, money, weapons, meetings, a record of communication. Walking into a talk, by contrast, is a one-sided act and requires no registration, no membership and no invitation. Just as it is not possible to choose who walks into the hall, it is not possible to attribute the views of whoever walks in to the person speaking.
None of these could be shown in the file; and the document's own conclusion is given above. In the final indictment it prepared in July 2018, the prosecution withdrew all the charges of membership of a terrorist organisation. One single accusation was left: propaganda for a terrorist organisation.
Related headings: the claim that an ISIS member was his student, the claim that Salafi and takfiri individuals attended his talks, and the claim of membership of four terrorist organisations at once. All the dates on this page fall between 2012 and 2018.