Obstruction of Conferences and Pressure
What is Kuytul's finding about a "secret committee hostile to religion"?
Fact
This page is compiled from the interview Alparslan Kuytul gave to the magazine Furkan Nesli after what happened in Adana on 22 April 2017. It is not an answer to a claim, and there is no document here: what is relayed is Kuytul's own assessment, and the page relays it as it is.
Kuytul says that behind the obstructions he sees a structure separate from the government. When he first spoke of it he used the expression "godless committee", and then corrected himself. His reason is this: some of the irreligious are on the side of justice and are not hostile to religion; there are atheists who think well of him too. He therefore narrowed his description:
"I am changing my words 'godless secret committee' to 'secret committee hostile to religion'."
The group he describes is, in his own words, a minority of five or ten thousand people: it does not come to the fore, it works through cadres inside the state, it has specialised in social engineering, and it steers governments.
The main consequence of this finding as regards the obstructions is this — Kuytul does not lay what happened at the government's door alone. He openly accepts that the decision came out of the government, but he thinks that the one who had it issued is another group. In his own comparison, the brain is one thing and the arm another.
The observation he rests on is concrete as well: the subject of the banned conference was "The Exemplary Human Being: The Prophet", and the sentence conveyed to him as the reason for the ban was that programmes with this content were banned. From here Kuytul concludes that the obstruction is not a matter of security but a matter of content.
What this text is, and what it is not
What follows is Alparslan Kuytul's own assessment. It is not a court decision, a police report or a document; nor does the page make any such claim. The purpose here is a single one: to relay what Kuytul said when he was asked the reason for the obstructions, uncut and together with his own grounds. Whether the assessment is correct is left to the reader's judgement.
When was the interview given?
The interview was given for issue 73 of the magazine Furkan Nesli, immediately after what happened in Adana on Saturday, 22 April 2017. That day the press statement that was to take the place of the conference banned the day before had been intervened against. The order of dates of the events is set out on a separate page: the 2014-2018 timeline.
Why did the "godless committee" become the "secret committee hostile to religion"?
When Kuytul first spoke of this structure he used the term "godless committee". He then found the term too narrow himself and changed it. His reason is an interesting one: he says that to count the irreligious as a single category would be unjust, that among them are people on the side of justice who bear no hostility towards religion, and that there are atheists who think well of him. The place where he draws the line is not belief but attitude:
"I am changing my words 'godless secret committee' to 'secret committee hostile to religion'."
This correction also settles whom the finding covers. What is at issue is not people without belief but a small group that he believes carries an organised enmity towards religion.
The structure he describes
In his own account, the features of this group are these:
- it is small in number — a minority of five or ten thousand people,
- it never appears in the foreground,
- it has specialised in social engineering and is in contact with intelligence circles,
- it thinks that it is itself the owner of the state, and it is cut off from the people and from the people's religion,
- it steers governments; it does not try to take the place of governments.
As a historical basis he refers to the period of Union and Progress and to the term "committee" that appears in Bediüzzaman's treatises. The conclusion he draws from this is: although Bediüzzaman said again and again that he did not enter politics and did not criticise the regime or government policies, he was subjected to slander and pressure. The matter, then, is not political criticism alone.
Why does he not lay the obstructions at the government's door alone?
This is the side of the finding that is most often skipped. Kuytul does not deny that the decision came out of the government; he says it openly: the obstruction of the conferences has gone on for three years, and it is the government that does it. But he does not see a single will behind it. The inconsistency he points to is this — while no one in the government's own base would defend laying a hand on the headscarf, within the period of that same government a police officer was able to lay a hand on a headscarf. In his own comparison: the brain is one thing and the arm another; the power is the government's, the decision is someone else's.
His second ground is a sentence that appears in the justification of the ban. The subject of the conference was "The Exemplary Human Being: The Prophet"; the answer given by the deputy governor was that "programmes with this content are banned". From here Kuytul concludes that the obstruction is not a matter of security but a matter of content. The text and scope of the ban decision are examined on a separate page: did the ban decision target a hall or a religious community.
What is his own priority?
At the end of the interview he says something unexpected: what he finds far more important than the obstruction of his own conferences is that the structure he speaks of should come to light. In the same frame, he thinks the structure works in stages — he says that the turn will come first to the religious communities the government is already distant from, and then to those who stand close to the government.
The thesis of "hostility to the government" put forward as the reason for the obstructions is taken up on a separate page, on the basis of the record: the claim that "they are being obstructed because they are enemies of the government".