Erdoğan’s Religious Guide Approved Torture And Abuse In Turkey


Date posted: February 2, 2017

Turkish president’s chief religious counsel has given his approval to overlook torture and other crimes committed by members of security services, saying that Turkey is at total mobilization and under attack from within and outside.

Hayrettin Karaman, a professor of Islamic law who is known as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief fatwa (religious edict)-giver and held in high esteem by the government, wrote today in pro-government Islamist daily Yeni Şafak that “no punishment can be rendered to soldiers who committed lesser crimes while they are fighting”.

“In these days, so many countries, people, institutions and such have been challenging Turkey with a bad intention to do harm in cooperation among themselves, and those starting with our president who love this nation and the country are battling against this attack as if they are in the spirit of mobilization with their lives and everything they got”, he wrote in his regular column.

Karaman’s blessing for ignoring crimes committed by police, military and other government officials, has drawn the ire of human rights defenders, and advocacy groups.

Turkish government has come under intense criticisms in the last several years for reintroducing torture, abuse and ill-treatment in detention centers and prisons.

Amnesty International (AI) said that it has credible evidence of torture in official and unofficial detention centers in Turkey following the failed coup attempt on July 15 that led to the detention of over 80,000 people with half of them formally arrested.

“Reports of abuse including beatings and rape in detention are extremely alarming, especially given the scale of detentions that we have seen in the past week. The grim details that we have documented are just a snapshot of the abuses that might be happening in places of detention,” said Amnesty International’s Europe Director John Dalhuisen in late July.

In October, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Turkish police of torturing detainees. In a 43-page report titled “A Blank Check: Turkey’s Post-Coup Suspension of Safeguards Against Torture,” HRW documented 13 specific abuse incidents concerning Turkey’s post-coup detainees. The alleged abuse cases ranged from the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation to severe beatings, sexual abuse and the threat of rape.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer visited Turkey between November 27 and Dec. 2, the first by a UN torture expert to Turkey since 1998, and said “Some recently passed legislation and statutory decrees created an environment conducive to torture.” The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) carried out inspections in Turkey between Aug. 28 and Sept. 6 but Turkish government blocked the release of the publication of its report.

This is not the first time Karaman has issued religious edicts approving wrongdoings in the government and to absolve responsibilities of Erdogan’s rule. The cleric, seen as Turkish equivalent of Muslim Brotherhood’s religious and spiritual leader Youssef Qaradawi, has approved the kickbacks taken by government officials in response to the exposé of mass corruption investigations in Dec. 2013 that incriminated Erdoğan, his associates and his family members in billions of dollars in bribes.

He also endorsed Erdoüan’s desire to secure super presidency by transforming Turkey’s secular parliamentary democracy into an executive presidency with no or limited checked and balances. Karaman likened executive presidency to Caliphate in Islam and said the best system is based on Islamic Sharia. “It is difficult for Muslims to preserve religion and culture under a secular order”, he maintained.

The cleric also came to the aid of Erdoğan when the president was heavily criticized by the US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen who lambasted Erdoüan on corruption, aiding and abetting armed Jihadists in Syria and stoking xenophobia in Turkey.

Karaman attacked the interfaith and intercultural dialog efforts long championed by Gülen in Turkey and abroad. Karaman wrote on Aug. 24, 2014 that Vatican’s real purpose for interfaith dialogue is to convert Muslims to Christianity, taking aim at Gülen’s meeting with Pope as part of interfaith dialogue.

He warned that millions of expat Turks abroad have been exposed to intensive Christian propaganda and criticized Gülen and other religious scholars’ engagement with Christian and Jewish groups.

Source: Stockholm Center for Freedom , February 2, 2017


Related News

Prominent columnist Bağdat slams persecution of Hizmet

Popular daily columnist Hayko Bağdat called for a halt of the witch hunt against Hizmet and expressed the need for tolerance for all social groups in Turkey.

Reasons to be worried about Turkey’s direction

For the first time in the 11-year reign of the AK Party, I was truly concerned when Erdoğan last week said that the decision to shut down private prep schools was finalized despite heavy resistance from a significant portion of society. A government that could consider interfering with “freedom of enterprise” is grim enough.

“Freedom To Kacmaz Family” becomes trend on social media in Pakistan

Freedom To Kacmaz Family and Release Kacmaz Family became trends on social media in Pakistan on Saturday and Sunday. Demand for the release of Turkish teacher and his family is increasing day by day and civil society of Pakistan is protesting against abduction of Turk teacher Mesut Kacmaz and his family from their house in Lahore last week.

AKP: What is next?

Neither Erdoğan nor his bureaucrats could convince the public that their plan was educational, and not an attempt to punish the Hizmet movement. Gül, Arınç and several of Erdoğan’s ministers couldn’t stop Erdoğan, who started a war against the Hizmet movement and even directly attacked Fethullah Gülen by taking remarks Gülen made about the headscarf ban 15 years ago completely out of context.

A little fairness, please!

Please, take a deep breath and take a trip back to a short time ago. What do you remember of the “Justice and Development Party (AK Party)-Gülen movement disagreement”? Here’s a brief reminder, for a better understanding of the discussion: Fethullah Gülen was taken to the hospital in an ambulance because of an emergency. Because I visited him that day, I wrote as follows: “One of the persons who made [the] first phone call was Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Jailed Zaman editor says we are journalists, not terrorists

Former Zaman daily Ankara Representative Mustafa Ünal, who is standing trial after 414 days in pretrial detention, said on Monday that he and other colleagues in the same case are journalists, not terrorists.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Çelik admits profiling as daily faces criminal complaint for revelations

Turkey, The great purge – Four lives upturned by Erdogan’s ‘cleansing.’ Episode 4 – Betul

Despite pressure, Pak-Turk schools won’t be shut

Bulgarian student wins Turkish Olympiad song contest final

Karınca Yuvası (Ant Nest) from Turkish designers to Bangladeshi orphans

Police detain student over fingerprints on Gülen books

Erdogan’s vendetta against moderate Muslims threatens Turkey’s role in War on Terror

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News