The "if he wants to do politics, let him found a party" claim

Where does the sentence come from?

This objection circulates on social media too, but it takes its real weight from a legal text. On 30 January 2018 the operation against the Furkan Foundation was carried out; by the decision of 8 February 2018 Alparslan Kuytul was remanded in custody. In the grounds of the decision appeared the statement that his not having founded a political party "is not of a nature compatible with the ordinary course of life". Kuytul was released on 5 December 2019.

The structure of the grounds

The sentence needs to be looked at carefully, because it treats as evidence not an act but the absence of an act. No act that Kuytul performed is presented as an element of an offence; an act he did not perform — not founding a party — is treated as a sign that a hidden intention lies behind it.

The trouble with this reasoning is this: the things any person has not done are countless. If an intention can be drawn from something not done, then by the same method any conclusion can be drawn about anyone. For an accusation to hold, it has to rest on a concrete act. The same person may also not have founded an association, not have published a newspaper, not have stood as a candidate in an election; none of these on its own shows an intention.

Kuytul's answer

Kuytul proposes testing the grounds by their own measure: if the measure holds, it must hold for everyone who falls under it.

"Which of the people who appear on television, how many of them, are a party? Most of those who appear are journalists, lawyers, professors, writers and so on, are they not? These are not a party either."

In Turkey the country's affairs are discussed on screen every evening. The great majority of those who speak are journalists, academics, lawyers and writers; columnists, heads of bar associations, trade unionists, professional chambers and, from time to time, artists and sportspeople also express opinions. None of them has founded a party and this is asked of none of them. If "steering public favour" is accepted as a measure, all of these names fall within the same description.

Expressing an opinion and founding a party are different things

The two are separate rights, and in law neither is a condition of the other. There is no provision requiring someone who wants to express a view to found a legal entity first. Founding a party is the way to stand for election and seek power; expressing an opinion is a right that can be exercised without standing for election at all. To treat the first as a precondition of the second is to confuse the two.

The reverse is true as well: having founded a party does not by itself show the truth or the sincerity of an opinion. The two are assessed separately. That is also what is expected of a legal text — to look not at which form of organisation a person has chosen but at which concrete act they have committed.

Not founding a party is not a hidden choice

The grounds say implicitly, "he actually has a political aim but is hiding it". Yet nothing is being hidden. For years Kuytul has said openly and on the record that he stands outside day-to-day party politics and supports no party. Nor does he conceal the field he speaks on or his reason for it; what he speaks about and why is taken up in a separate subject: the claim that "a religious teacher should not get involved in politics".

Seen this way, the grounds contradict themselves: a person is held to be suspect for not doing something they have publicly rejected. Had they done it, it would have been said, "so they did have a political aim"; because they did not do it, it has been said, "so they are hiding it". A measure under which both possibilities lead to the same conclusion is not a measure.

A related subject: the claim that "politics is not the business of a scholar of fiqh".