As Turkey sinks into the religious state morass, Europe has been caught off-guard. As reports in AL Monitor, Turkey’s Religious Affairs Department, Diyanet, and the Turkish imams under its supervision strongly supported President Erdogan during the attempted coup. Their next mission?
The issue of spying imams led to diplomatic tensions first between Turkey and the Netherlands, and then with Germany and Austria. The crisis escalated when the German police searched the residences of four Turkish imams on Feb. 15.
In a report submitted to the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission investigating the coup attempt, there were references to intelligence information provided by imams posted abroad. Diyanet-appointed imams collected intelligence from 38 countries, primarily about the Gulen movement.
Reports submitted by the spying imams covered all Gulenist activities, the names of their adherents and their photos in European, Central Asian and African countries. After the Diyanet reports to the parliamentary inquiry were leaked to the media in December 2016, the first reaction came from the Netherlands. Diyanet reports revealed that official Turkish religious personnel were collecting intelligence about Turkish expatriates praying in 145 mosques in that country. Yusuf Acar, the religious affairs attache of the Turkish Embassy in The Hague, was accused of guiding local imams. The Turkish government was asked to recall Acar, and it did.
Germany and Austria had related incidents. However, it appears Erdogan is convinced there are Gulenists everywhere.
Media organs close to the government said the spying imam crisis was a ploy of Western countries to support and protect the Gulen movement.
It will be interesting, in twenty years, to find out if Erdogan’s paranoia is justified. Right now it appears he’s thrashing about and harming strategic relations, slowly falling into the image of so many dictators who worried more about their power than their nation.
