Claims About the Coronavirus and the Prayer Bans
The "They Knowingly Violated the Ban" Claim
Unfounded
Claim
Fact
The night of 21 May 2020, Adana. The last week of Ramadan; mosques, mosque courtyards and parks are closed to prayer. A group of eight or ten people who want to perform the tarawih prayer in Merkez Park are met by the police, who had learned in advance what was going to happen and had closed the park. Everything on this page belongs to that night and the following day; it has no connection with the case opened by the operation of 30 January 2018.
The claim says that the group knowingly violated the ban. The testimony shows the opposite: they learned that prayer in the park was forbidden when the police said so, and they began to disperse. Kuytul's account is the same: "I did not know myself either that praying in a park was forbidden." In those days decisions were being published one after another.
Those who asked to see the decision of the governor's office were shown no paper. The answer the police gave is on record in the testimony given in the forum programme of 29 May 2020: here it is I who forbid the prayer, and I am not showing the paper from the governor's office either. The written decision was not produced at any stage.
The beating, too, took place not inside the park but on the road as people were moving away. People crossing from one pavement to another and walking to their cars were met with shields, batons, kicks and pepper gas; those taken into custody obtained assault reports from the forensic medicine department towards morning.
The official document that remains does not confirm the claim either. The only paper pressed into people's hands at the end of custody is the record of an administrative fine of 3,180 lira for contravening the Law on Public Health. That is, even what the sentence "they violated the ban" amounts to in the eyes of the state is not a criminal case but a mask-and-distance penalty.
How did the ban become known?
The sequence recounted by the witnesses who spoke at the forum of 29 May 2020 is always the same: they go to the park, they are met by the police, they hear of the ban there, they turn back. One group comes with their prayer mats to perform the isha and tarawih prayers at a distance from one another; they learn that the park is a forbidden area for the first time from the warning of the police, and they begin to disperse. Another person is stopped while walking towards the outer part of the courtyard of the Merkez Mosque, their identity card is taken, they are told "the mosques are forbidden, the parks and gardens are forbidden" and are moved on; they too cross to the other side of the road.
The reason for not knowing is plain enough as well. The police had learned in advance what was going to happen and had closed the park; no one walked past a signboard or a decision hung on a gate and went inside. The group did not enter the park at all. Kuytul says that he too learned of it that same night, and adds his reason: for two or three months a new decision had been published every day, and people were losing track of which one to follow.
The only thing asked for was the paper
A ban rests on a written decision, and that decision may be asked for. This is what the group did. The answer they received is on record in the testimony: here it is I who forbid the prayer, and I am not showing the paper from the governor's office either; if you object, do whatever you like.
This answer turns the claim on its head. Before one can say that a decision was knowingly violated, that decision first has to be produced. It was shown neither that night nor afterwards.
What happened after the park
As they were moving away, some of the people stood to pray at the roadside. Kuytul says that he learned of this afterwards, and he does not find what was done faultless either: he himself states that the central reservation is not a suitable place for prayer. But the beating did not begin with this either — it was carried out against those who were dispersing, those crossing from one pavement to another, those walking to their cars:
"The friends are walking, they have come out and are leaving. He hits the man who is leaving."
What did the 47 people violate?
The figure of 47 detentions used in the news gave the impression of a mass action. Yet most of those taken into custody were not the people who prayed. After the first detentions, those who came to the police station to ask after their relatives were taken in as well; whoever came was taken, whoever asked was taken, and that is how the figure reached 47. In other words, the greater part of the crowd accused of knowingly violating a ban had not even been at the scene.
The one document that remains
The legal equivalent of everything that happened during the night emerged in the morning. After the statements had been taken, everyone was released and a single paper was pressed into their hands: an administrative fine of 3,180 lira per person for contravening the Law on Public Health. Some of the records were drawn up with the note "refused to sign".
This record shows the weakest point of the claim. The fine is grounded on the mask and distance rules; it contains no finding that anyone "knowingly violated the decision of the governor's office". The penalty imposed does not even state plainly what the rule was that people are said not to have followed.
The documents pointing in the opposite direction, on the other hand, are on file: those taken into custody obtained assault reports from the forensic medicine department, some of them were found to be injured beyond the competence of a general practitioner and were referred to a specialist, and complaints were filed.
For the detailed testimony of the same night: The Night of 21 May 2020 in the Words of Those Who Were Beaten. How the night was conveyed to the public is dealt with under a separate heading: The Claim That They Staged a Prayer Provocation in Adana.