Do Furkan Foundation programs pose a security risk?

Unfounded

Claim

Furkan Foundation's conferences and programs pose a security risk; the closure of venues, the cancellation of permits and the banning of events stem from this risk.

Claimed by: The administrative authorities that cited security as the ground for the cancellation and ban decisions (the İskenderun District Governorship, the Adana Governorship)29 May 2016Source

Fact

The security justification is the common signature of the obstruction decisions stretching from 2014 to 2018: conference posters were confiscated, indoor sports halls were withheld, wedding hall owners were deterred, programs for women were cancelled.

Such a justification has only one test: what happened at the programs held previously? The answer is on record.

In hundreds of conferences held over the years, not a pane of glass or a chair was broken, and not one person's nose was bloodied.
29 May 2016 — When the Hatay Governorate permitted a statement at İskenderun İstasyon Square, the program attended by more than ten thousand people ended without incident.
22 April 2017 — Although the intervention in Adana used gas, pressurised water, plastic bullets and batons, not a single stone was thrown at the police from the crowd.

The second item tests the justification on its own terms: the same day, the same people, the same city. The only difference was that permission had been granted — and once it was granted, no security problem remained.

The third item is the decisive one. Whether a community is dangerous is understood not at the moment it is most at ease, but at the moment it is most provoked. That moment came, and the result did not change.

In both incidents, what produced the scene spilling onto the street was not the program itself but its obstruction: in İskenderun the motorway closed because the roads had been blocked off in advance; in Adana the march came about because the park was cleared.

What speaks here is not the self-defence of the obstructed party, but the outcome of the events. A justification tested a hundred times and found empty a hundred times ceases to be a justification.

The justification was always the same

In the period stretching from 2014 to the operation of 30 January 2018, Furkan Foundation's programs were obstructed in various ways: posters were confiscated, indoor sports halls were withheld, wedding hall owners were pressed to back out, conferences for women were cancelled. The justification for the decisions was usually a single word: security.

This justification can be argued over for as long as it is asserted. But it can also be tested — because there is a record of the programs that were held.

First test: the record of hundreds of conferences

Over the years the foundation organised hundreds of conferences. In none of them was a pane of glass or a chair broken, and no one's nose bled. Kuytul's objection to the ban decisions begins here as well: not a single example of endangering national security or disturbing public order could be produced.

Second test: 29 May 2016, İskenderun

For the conference on The Conquest of Istanbul and the Generation of Conquest to be held in İskenderun, an application was made to the district governorate on 11 May 2016 and permission was granted. After tens of thousands of leaflets and posters had been printed, the permission was withdrawn on the grounds that security could not be provided.

On Sunday 29 May 2016 the roads leading to Hatay were blocked off; buses were stopped at checkpoints, passengers were made to get off, and some were left on foot. Around seven to eight thousand people trying to reach İskenderun were surrounded at a facility in Erzin. The crowd, forced to walk onto the motorway, was met with pepper gas and pressurised water; one person's foot was broken and the motorway was closed in both directions.

At the end of the same day, the Hatay Governorate permitted a press statement to be made at İskenderun İstasyon Square. Those held at the checkpoints were released as well, and the program, attended by more than ten thousand people, ended without incident.

In terms of the justification, this is the clearest measure: the same day, the same people, the same city. The only difference was that permission had been granted — and once it was granted, no security problem remained.

Third test: 22 April 2017, Adana

After the conference in Adana was banned, the press statement that was to be made in Atatürk Park was met with a heavy intervention: pressurised water mixed with pepper gas from the TOMAs, gas grenades, plastic bullets, dogs and batons. There were fractures and injuries.

Even so, not a single blow was struck against the police by the thousands of people present, and not a stone was thrown. This was the moment at which the risk claim would have served best; even at that moment nothing bore it out.

What produced the risk?

In both incidents, what produced the scene spilling onto the street was not the program itself but the obstruction of the program. In İskenderun the motorway closed because the roads had been blocked off; in Adana the march came about because the park was cleared. Kuytul's sentence on this matter is short:

"Yet if they had allowed the press statement in Atatürk Park, nothing at all would have happened."

What remains

The foundation says that in a working history approaching 30 years none of its members has been involved in any crime or harmed anyone. This is the party's own statement and does not count as proof on its own. But refuting it would be easy: a single counter-example would suffice. Although those who issued the ban decisions had hundreds of programs spread over years before them, no such example has been produced.

The truth of a justification is measured not by who states it, but by what emerges when it is tested. Here it was tested three times, and all three times it came up empty.

The claim that "Furkan Foundation's programs pose a security risk"