Claims About the Coronavirus and the Prayer Bans
The "They Held a Secret Tarawih Prayer in the Mosque" Claim
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
The subject is the incident that took place in Adana on the night of 21 May 2020. The following day some publications carried it under the headline "a secret tarawih prayer in the mosque". Neither of the two words in that headline matches the incident.
The mosque: At that time both the mosque and its courtyard were closed to prayer. No one went inside. The place they went to was Merkez Park, next to the mosque — that is, not an enclosed space but an open area.
Secret: The police had learned in advance that a prayer was going to be performed, and had closed the park before the group arrived. Something known in advance cannot be hidden. Besides, there was not even an entry into the park; when the ban was stated to the group, it left.
The prayer they wanted to perform really was the tarawih; but it was to be performed in the open air, with masks and with distance left between them. According to the Furkan Foundation's statement, this choice was made in line with the statement of the Directorate of Religious Affairs that prayer could be performed in the open air.
What is left is this picture: there is no prayer performed in secret in an enclosed place; there is a prayer that people wanted to perform in the open air and were prevented from performing. Most of the group could not perform the prayer at all, and those who could manage it did so on the pavement and on the central reservation.
Kuytul, asking which place was permitted that night, sums the situation up like this: "Forbidden in the mosque! Forbidden in the courtyard! Forbidden in the park! And after that you say, keep your distance."
The headline is a claim about a place
The phrase "a secret tarawih prayer in the mosque" sets up a particular scene in the reader's mind: the door of a closed mosque is opened, and inside a large congregation stands to pray in secret. No such scene took place in Adana on the night of 21 May 2020. For that reason the answer to the claim is not an interpretation but a determination of place.
No entry into the mosque
At that time the mosques were closed to prayer; not only the interior, but the courtyard as well. The place they went to was Merkez Park, next to the Merkez Mosque. Kadir Yılmaz, speaking in the forum programme held on the night of 29 May 2020, recounts that while he was walking towards the outer part of the mosque courtyard he was asked for identification and told to move away, and that he then crossed to the other side of the road. No one entered the mosque, and no one tried to.
No entry into the park either
Recep Kardaş, who witnessed the beginning of the incident, relates that he and five or six friends took their prayer mats and went to the park, that the police met them there, and that they were told they could not pray here. The written decision was asked for and was not shown. The group did not insist, and began to disperse. Kuytul stresses the same point: "They never even entered the park."
The word "secret" refutes itself
For an act to count as secret, it has to be done in hiding. Yet the police had learned in advance that people intended to pray in that park, and had closed the park before the group arrived. Nothing was being concealed; on the contrary, there was a prayer that a few people wanted to perform in the open air, in a place everyone knew.
Where and how was the prayer performed?
The prayers that could be performed were performed on the pavement and on the central reservation — with masks and with distance left between them. The Furkan Foundation stated that the choice of an open area was made in line with the statement of the Directorate of Religious Affairs about praying in the open air.
Kuytul does not avoid admitting that the place chosen was not ideal: "Of course a central reservation is not really a suitable place for prayer. But at that moment that is how it was done." This sentence matters, because the answer to the claim is not "everything was faultless" but "the incident that is alleged never happened at all".
The second headline of the same night
As the detentions went on until morning, those who were waiting could not reach the mosque right beside them because of the police cordon, and so performed the dawn prayer on the road. The following day this footage was carried under the headline "a prayer at zero distance".
The two headlines work in the same direction: one moves the prayer to a place where it was not, the other to a closeness that was not there. Both can be refuted by the footage of that same night that those publications themselves published.
What was the real argument about?
The objection Kuytul repeated in those days was not to the measures, but to the way the measures were applied: "Even though the state may impose a social distancing requirement against the virus epidemic, it cannot prevent worship from being performed in congregation." He finds it incomprehensible that praying separately should be permitted while one person stepping forward to lead as imam should be counted as forbidden. This is a matter of debate, and it can be debated; but it is not what the headline "a secret tarawih in the mosque" was debating — that headline recounts an incident that did not happen.
For the whole of that night and the detentions: The Claim That They Staged a Prayer Provocation in Adana. For the claim about organisation: The "Alparslan Kuytul Organised the Incident" Claim.