Why Was I Arrested? His Own Three Answers
Fact
The case in question is this: the Furkan Foundation operation of 30 January 2018, the arrest of 8 February 2018, the release of 5 December 2019. Alparslan Kuytul's answer below belongs to the interview he gave on 10 December 2019, after his release.
The question was this: the accusations in the indictment are already known, what is really wondered about is the reason for the arrest. Kuytul is not giving this answer to a newspaper for the first time — by his own account he had written the reasons in the written defence he submitted to the court and had explained them in two courts as well. The three reasons he listed:
- the criticism he directed at the AK Party,
- his speaking of the plans of the deep state,
- and the reason he saw as the most important: that he expounds tawhid.
To understand why the third item comes first, one needs to know what he understands by tawhid:
"When tawhid is mentioned everyone says 'God is one!' but it does not consist of that alone. La ilahe illallah means there is no god other than God. It means I recognise no authority that is obeyed other than God, all people must obey God."
He goes on to say that this does not mean compulsion either: "Of course there is no compulsion in religion." But he does not keep his definition confined to private life; he counts wanting God's ruling to be valid in the state as well as Islam itself. According to Kuytul, the real unease arose from here.
He gave his answer to the court first
These three reasons are not a comment produced later in an interview. According to Kuytul's own statement, he wrote the reasons in the written defence he submitted to the court and also explained them orally before two separate courts. What he did in the December 2019 interviews was to repeat what was written in that defence.
First reason: criticism of the AK Party
Kuytul says that this criticism began long before the operation. He points to 2003 as its starting point: he recounts that from that date on he criticised the support given to the invasion of Iraq through İncirlik Air Base even though the motion had not passed Parliament, but that his voice was not heard because the internet was not widespread in those years.
The moment the relationship broke down he gives with its date: the conference that was to be held in Bağcılar, Istanbul on 29 May 2014 was cancelled a day or two before the programme, after the close of business on Friday, while the municipality was its sponsor. Kuytul says that on that day he did not believe this came from the government, and that even in the speech he made in front of the hall he said, "I mean, why would the AK Party do this?" His conviction changed when a friend of his received the answer "It is not only about you. Such a decision was taken" from the minister of the time.
Second reason: his speaking of the plans of the deep state
While explaining the second reason he says that he did not see a single power in front of him. In his own description there were two separate sides: those disturbed by his criticism of the government, and the bureaucratic structure disturbed by the growth of the activities.
"Everyone knows it but nobody speaks. I spoke, and so I threw a spanner into their system."
Third reason — to him the most important: tawhid
At the head of his list Kuytul places not politics but tawhid. The reason is that what he understands by tawhid is not limited to a declaration of belief:
"When tawhid is mentioned everyone says 'God is one!' but it does not consist of that alone. It means I recognise no authority that is obeyed other than God, all people must obey God."
He then sets two limits. The first is the prohibition of compulsion: "Of course there is no compulsion in religion." The second is who is being addressed: he says that if a person counts himself a Muslim, his measure must be the book of God, not his own opinion or the opinion of leaders. The conclusion he writes plainly — a civilisation as God wants it, both in private life and in the order of the state: "This is Islam itself!"
According to Kuytul it is precisely this definition that disturbs the dominant powers; he recalls that throughout history the first to oppose the call of the prophets were those who benefited from the existing order.
So what happened to the case files?
He gives the answer to this question on the TV5 programme of 11 December 2019. By his own account the investigation was divided into two case files and in both files a release was ordered at the first hearing. On the same programme he gives the number of cases opened against him as nine, and the number of those that had ended in acquittal up to that day as three.
He also takes up one sentence from the grounds for the arrest: the decision stated that trying to direct the favour of the people through social media without founding a political party did not accord with the ordinary course of life. Kuytul's objection to this is simple — none of the journalists, jurists and writers who speak on television has a party either.
What is conveyed on this page is Kuytul's own assessment; the figures given and the state of the case files are as of December 2019. The page deals only with the 2018–2019 process. For the detention conditions of the same period: 14 of the 22 months in a single-occupancy cell.