Why Did I Defend the KHK Victims?
Fact
This text is compiled from two interviews Alparslan Kuytul gave immediately after his release on 5 December 2019, which followed the operation of 30 January 2018 and his arrest on 8 February 2018: to Gazete Duvar on 10 December 2019, and to TV5 on 11 December 2019. It is not a response to a claim; it conveys the subject in his own words.
His position rests on a single distinction: a person involved in the coup and a person not involved cannot be put in the same basket. His judgment on the coup is clear — "I am against the coup to the very end. Those connected with the coup are guilty." His objection is to what was done to the second group:
"I defended innocent people who had no connection to the coup and who were wronged merely for having deposited money in Bank Asya. I did not defend coup plotters, I defended innocent people."
He relies on two figures. The number of people removed from their posts by decrees having the force of law is close to 150,000. And among those against whom proceedings were brought on the grounds of ByLock, the state's own prosecutor announced that 11,480 people were innocent in this respect. The demand he draws from this is not an amnesty: let those whose guilt is established be punished, and for those with a ByLock record, let the content of that record be examined.
He also describes whom he is speaking for — people who worked as teachers or doctors in those institutions, who were employed there as support staff, who studied in those schools. His own summary is a single sentence: "Do not burn the wet along with the dry."
In defending this he was not asking for anything on his own account: "Had they done it to me? Was I the one dismissed by a KHK?"
His criticisms of the Gülen community do not take the place of this position; they reach back to the 1990s and are dealt with under a separate heading: the claim "He criticized Gülen only after 15 July".
Where and when was this said?
Alparslan Kuytul was arrested on 8 February 2018, following the operation against the Furkan Foundation on 30 January 2018, and was released on 5 December 2019. The words below are compiled from two interviews given immediately after his release: the interview he gave to Gazete Duvar on 10 December 2019 and the live broadcast he took part in on TV5 on the evening of 11 December 2019.
Where does the distinction begin?
Kuytul leaves no doubt on the matter of the coup: a coup is the taking back by arms of the authority given by the people, and whoever takes part in it is guilty. What he says concerns where the punishment should stop.
"Proceedings were brought against hundreds of thousands of people, tens of thousands were thrown into prison. These people have nothing to do with the coup. These are people at the lower levels. Many of them were people who voted for the AKP in the past."
Two figures
The data he relies on are not his own estimate but the official magnitudes of the process. The number of people removed from their posts by decrees having the force of law is close to 150,000. ByLock, for its part, had been used in many case files as a sign standing on its own; afterwards the prosecutor's office announced that 11,480 people were innocent with respect to this program, and it was stated that this number could rise.
Kuytul's question lies between these two figures: if the same method had to be corrected in the case of more than ten thousand people, on what basis is the rest treated as certain?
What is asked for is not an amnesty but that the file be examined
His demand can be summarized in a single sentence — a record should not take the place of the verdict itself:
"You, punish the coup plotters. And as for ByLock, look at its content. Do not say 'if there is ByLock then that settles it, this man is a coup plotter' and hand down a sentence."
He also states clearly whom he is speaking for: people who worked as teachers or doctors in those institutions, who were employed there as support staff, who studied in those schools. Recalling the President's words "the horse's track got mixed up with the dog's track," he adds his own sentence: "Do not burn the wet along with the dry."
Defending this was of no benefit to him
Kuytul is not someone dismissed by decree, nor is he part of the group he defended. His own question is this:
"For instance, were they doing something to me, that I defended those dismissed by KHK? Had they done it to me? Was I the one dismissed by a KHK?"
He says he also took the cost into account: "I accepted even prison." There is one more sentence he adds — even the group he defended did not speak that much for its own members.
Is this a defense or propaganda?
This is the point at which this position is most often confused: defending the victims has been counted as defending that structure's views. Kuytul's answer begins by recalling the distance between himself and that structure — in the same broadcast he says that he has criticized them since the 1980s and that his criticisms were scholarly: for years he explained that what they did was not right according to Islam and that in this way they harmed Islam.
"Why would I make propaganda for them or why would I help them? What I do is to oppose injustices."
The difference can be put in a single sentence: defending an opinion and defending a person's right are not the same thing. What Kuytul defended is the second.
The measure does not change according to the person
The real reason is not the identity of the wronged party but the measure itself — injustice is the same thing no matter to whom it is done, and he applies the same measure to the side that put him in prison. This measure and the examples in which it is applied are dealt with separately on the page "I stand against oppression no matter to whom it is done".
His criticisms of the Gülen community are not the subject of this page and reach back to long before 15 July 2016: the claim "He criticized Gülen only after 15 July" · the claim "He made FETÖ propaganda".