CHP Submits Parliamentary Question Over Closure Of Mosque By Kütahya Governor

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Barış Yarkadaş said in televised remarks on Monday that he has submitted a parliamentary question to be answered by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government over the closure of a mosque in the province of Kütahya by its governor Şerif Yılmaz.

In a video shared in the media on Saturday, Yılmaz stated that he had shut down a mosque because it taught people "how to be servants of Israel" when responding to a member of the public at another mosque after Friday prayer.

Yılmaz, accompanied by Agriculture Minister Veysel Eroğlu, was confronted by an elderly man, Mevlüt Dönmez, who asked why authorities had shut down the Hüda Rabbim mosque in Kütahya. The minister tried to quiet Dönmez and asked to discuss the matter outside. Yılmaz pointed his finger at Dönmez and claimed to have shut down the mosque personally. "Tell him that they were teaching how to be servants of Israel there," the governor shouted.

Yarkadaş, who was a journalist prior to his election as a CHP deputy on June 7, asked in his parliamentary question whether the governor had shut down any mosques in Kütahya. He also asked about the reasoning behind the closures, if any had occurred, and what the AK party was planning to do about the governor.
Speaking during a program on Bugün TV on Monday evening, Yarkadaş promised to follow developments as they unfold. Remarking on the boldness of the governor's statement, Yarkadaş emphasized that Yılmaz is a member of the AK Party, and that the CHP would face a harsh smear campaign from the AK Party if such an incident had taken place while the CHP was in power.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Kütahya deputy Alim Işık described Yılmaz's statement as impertinent in a press conference in Ankara on Tuesday. “It is an insult to all the people in Kütahya to call the people in the Hüda Rabbim mosque servants of Israel,” Işık said.

Işık also criticized those in Kütahya who kept silent after witnessing such an incident, saying that silence was also an inappropriate reaction to Yılmaz, who he said also found a government position for his son without him taking a required state exam, and allotted lands in the province to the Foundation of Youth and Education in Turkey (TÜRGEV), an organization of which President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's son Bilal is an executive board member.

Dr. Zeliha Aksaz Şahbaz, the Republican People's Party (CHP) Kütahya provincial branch head, further claimed that the Kütahya Governor's Office building never had a license to be constructed, rendering it illegal. She asked Yılmaz in a press conference held in the party building on Tuesday, “Does the Kütahya Governor's Office have a construction license, earthquake insurance and an occupancy permit, when you have shut down a mosque, claiming that it has no construction license?”

The Hüda Rabbim mosque was built 36 years ago and donated to the Akyazı Education Foundation, which was established by people sympathetic to the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by the views of prominent Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. The mosque was operated by the Kütayha religious directorate, a state organization.

Critics argue that the governor shut down the mosque as part of a witch hunt against the Gülen movement, which is accused of orchestrating twin corruption investigations that implicated many members of the government, a charge the movement denies. Erdoğan has publicly vowed to pursue the witch hunt against schools, media outlets, businesses and educational facilities linked to the Gülen movement.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)