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Germany wants to cut the financial and personal ties of German Muslims of Turkish origin to Ankara in an effort to reduce foreign influence, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Sunday.

Markus Kerber, a top civil servant in the German Ministry of Interior, told FT that they need “an Islam for German Muslims that belongs to Germany,” adding: “That does not mean that we want to develop a new theology. It means that German Muslims have to decide: what kind of Islam do we want here?”

Kerber is the official in charge of relations between the government and the country’s 4-million-strong Muslim community. He said in the interview with FT that Germany’s goals are to “reduce foreign influence — both financial and personal — on Germany’s Muslim community; to ensure that imams preaching in Germany are trained in Germany; and to ensure that Muslims are better integrated into German society when it comes to issues of everyday life.”

According to the report, integrating the German Muslim community and combating Islamist extremism have emerged as important challenges for policymakers in Berlin especially after the 2015-16 refugee crisis, which led to the arrival of more than 1 million migrants from Muslim countries such as Syria and Afghanistan.

At the same time, a marked rise in political tensions between Berlin and Ankara has tested the loyalties of the German-Turkish community, unsettling an established Muslim community that has made Germany its home since the early 1960s, the FT story further said.

According to the report, Turkey continues to play an outsized role in the affairs of Germany’s Muslim community, thanks largely to the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DİTİB), the largest Islamic organisation in the country. DİTİB, which is a branch of Turkey’s own state directorate for religious affairs, runs 900 of the 2,400 mosques in Germany. Its imams are sent from Turkey, mostly preach in Turkish and are paid by the Turkish government.

“The Turkish government has to accept that the days when they had total control over German mosques run by DİTİB are over,” Kerber said. “I told officials in Ankara: your Turks are also our Turks now. Get used to it.” German Muslims, he added, had the right to be preached to in German and to have imams who were familiar with the realities of daily life in Germany. “Take the question of whether piercings and tattoos are compatible with the teachings of the Koran. If an imam cannot provide answers to questions like these, then there is a real danger that young Muslims will turn to an imam on the Internet — and that can quickly lead into dark waters.”

The German government’s desire to play a larger role in the development of Islamic life in Germany has been welcomed by liberal Muslim scholars but sparked criticism from other sections of the Muslim community. A conference of Islamic scholars organized by DİTİB this year warned in a joint statement that any attempt to introduce a “German Islam” or “European Islam” stood in “contradiction to the universality of Islam, which illuminates all ages and places at the same time.”

A letter submitted to a New York court that was allegedly written by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen ordering judges in Turkey to release several police officers has been refuted by Gülen’s lawyers, who said it was “complete nonsense invented and fabricated” for further false allegations against their client.

“A letter addressed to ‘The Honorable Judge of the Criminal Court of First Instance’ that was purportedly written by my client Mr. Gülen was first shared by the lawyers of Hakan Atilla, who is currently standing trial in a US court, and then by the chief public prosecutor of Istanbul, which caused further false allegations against my client,” said a statement shared on Twitter by Gülen’s lawyers.

“It must first be said that Mr. Gülen did not write the letter in question, or for that matter no other letter similar to that, and did not request any member of the judiciary to release any detained person or persons. The allegation that my client did write such a letter as well as the letter itself are nothing but complete nonsense invented and fabricated to somehow be used in the trial currently being held at the US court,” the statement said.

“The person on whose computer the said letter was purportedly recovered was taken into custody and had his computer seized on 27 July 2016. Although it has now been over 17 months since the computer was seized by the police, the letter in question has never been submitted in evidence in the respective court files of [either] the owner of the computer [or] the judges to whom the letter was purportedly sent. This ‘evidence of great significance’ which was never submitted to a Turkish court has now been submitted to the US court in evidence. This alone is clear indication that the said letter is nothing but fabrication.”

Gülen’s lawyers also noted: “This whole affair once again made it clear that certain members of the Turkish judiciary who operate under undue instructions from the government do accuse innocent people using fabricated evidence and strip them [of] their freedom.”

According to reports, the New York federal court to which the letter was submitted by Atilla’s lawyer ruled that it not be accepted as evidence.

Factual errors concerning the letter

According to a report on Friday by the state-run Anadolu news agency, the documents and digital materials confiscated from Fevzi Yazıcı, the jailed former art director of the Zaman daily, constitute “concrete evidence” of a 2015 plot to free some Gülen movement members from prison, Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Irfan Fidan told reporters.

But the authenticity of the letter in terms of wording and signature aside, critics pointed to some important contradictions between the statement of the prosecutor and the chronology of events.

According to Fidan’s statement, Yazıcı travelled to the US on April 8, 2015 and returned to Turkey on April 18, 2015 with the digital format of the letter allegedly written by Gülen on a USB that was seized by police at his home. But the letter was dated April 19, 2015 and the save date on the USB is April 26, 2016. Judges Mustafa Başer and Metin Özçelik, who were claimed to have received orders by means of the letter, released 75 jailed Gülen movement members including media members and police officers on April 25, 2015, a day before the letter was recorded on the USB that was allegedly brought by Yazıcı from the US on April 18.

The 10th Penal Court Of First Instance in Istanbul ruled against the release order that same night and stopped the 75 people including Samanyolu Broadcasting Group General Manager Hidayet Karaca and former police officers Ali Fuat Yılmazer, Nazmi Ardıç, Yurt Atayün, Ömer Köse, Yasin Topçu and Hüseyin Korkmaz from being freed.

Korkmaz is a former İstanbul police officer who was arrested by the Erdoğan regime in the aftermath of the corruption operations in late 2013 in which Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab and the inner circle of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were implicated.

Korkmaz became one of the witnesses along with Zarrab in a New York court where Mehmet Hakan Atilla, an executive of Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank, is being tried for violating US sanctions on Iran.

Korkmaz called Erdoğan the “No. 1” target in a group that also included Mehmet Zafer Çağlayan, the former economy minister, and Süleyman Aslan, a former chief executive at Halkbank, a large Turkish state-owned bank that was central to the sanction-busting scheme.

Mustafa Ünal (51), a jailed veteran journalist and former Ankara bureau chief for the now-closed Zaman daily, has said since the prosecutor who indicted him has been suspended from his job on charges of links to a crime organization, the indictment against him has lost its validity and the case must be dropped, the Tr724 news website reported on Thursday.

Ünal, who was arrested after a military coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016, was handed down a jail sentence of 10 years, six months by an İstanbul high criminal court in July 2018 on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.

The Zaman daily, which was Turkey’s best-selling newspaper, was closed down along with dozens of other media outlets due to their links to the Gülen movement, which is accused by Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of masterminding the coup attempt. The movement, labeled as a terror organization by the Turkish government, strongly denies involvement in the failed putsch or any terrorist activity.

Ünal sent a letter from Silivri Prison, where he is incarcerated, that was shared by his son on Twitter. In his letter Ünal says: “Can an indictment be taken seriously when it was written by a prosecutor whose links to a gang, fraud and establishment of a crime organization were found out by the HSK [Council of Judges and Prosecutors]? Can someone who takes it seriously be called a jurist? The case [against me] lacked any judicial grounds. It had already collapsed and now must be dropped. Since a trial cannot take place without an indictment, the proceedings and the ruling are null and void. I should immediately be given back my freedom.”

A multinational group of 17 young people living in Europe on Saturday started a march from Belgium to Germany to raise awareness of victims of a massive purge in Turkey targeting supporters of the faith-based Gülen movement.

The group, which started their 50-kilometer march from the Belgian town of  Clairefontaine, have so far walked to Luxembourg in cold weather in an effort to bring attention to people who had to flee Turkey on foot after being purged from the civil service and their passports revoked by the government.

The regime in Turkey holds the Gülen movement responsible for a failed coup on July 15, 2016 and is persecuting real and alleged followers of the movement.

The 17 marchers are for the most part are college students from the UK, according to news website TR724, which published photos of their march. The group has been able to raise more than 11,000 euros for Turkish purge victims who fled to Greece and will travel to Greece to deliver the donations on Feb. 17.

The march will end in the German town Perl.

A university student who was detained for participating in a protest in Ankara on Saturday was apparently harassed by a police officer during detention as captured by an observer’s camera.

The photos were posted on Twitter by purged teacher and activist Acun Karadağ.In reaction to the incident, main opposition deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu tweeted that it was a shame and that the police officer should be immediately dismissed and investigated.

An ailing 71-year-old Turkish businessman who was thrown in jail on trumped-up terrorism charges has suffered ill treatment and abuse in detention and prison facilities in Turkey. The long pre-trial detention and unlawful prosecution have destroyed his life, while authorities froze his bank accounts, depriving him of the necessary funds to support his ill wife and 98-year-old mother, both in need of constant care.

The abuse, documented by his statements in court and medical reports obtained by Nordic Monitor, reveals the systematic and deliberate campaign of torture and ill treatment of victims in Turkish prisons and detention facilities. As if the ordeal he went through were not enough, he was mocked by a judge at his first hearing when he had a chance to relate his story. His case is one of many in an unprecedented crackdown pursued against critics, opponents and dissidents by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Mehmet Emin Bayram appeared for the first time before the Istanbul 33rd High Criminal Court on June 25, 2018 to give a defense statement after he had spent a year in pre-trial detention following a police raid on his home in the early hours of June 6, 2017. He was dragged to a detention facility at the main police headquarters on Istanbul’s Vatan Street. He spent three days in detention before he was formally arrested during his arraignment by the Istanbul 5th Criminal Court of Peace on dubious terrorism charges. Authorities charged this old man with membership in the Gülen movement, a civic group led by US-based Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, a vocal critic of President Erdoğan.

Bayram was first transferred to Metris Prison in Bayrampaşa and then moved to the notorious Silivri Prison five days after his arrest. He had no criminal record and had never visited a police station in his life. A graduate of the state art academy, he worked as an architect for the government for 10 years before moving to the private sector in 1984. He ran various business enterprises in Istanbul, from construction to retail. He told the court his 390-day pre-trial detention had turned into a punishment in itself although he had not been convicted of any crime.

Describing the abysmal conditions in the detention facility where he shared a small cell with two other people, Bayram said he had slept on a mattress on the floor, was deprived of adequate food and water and was allowed very little time to use the bathroom facilities.  He suffered from heart problems as well as difficulty in breathing, and the police had to call emergency services after his cellmates alerted them to his condition. He was rushed to the emergency room at Istanbul Haseki Teaching and Research Hospital. After treatment, he was sent back to the detention facility.

As Bayram was about to further explain what had happened on his second day in detention during the hearing, he was cut off by presiding judge Muhammed Zafer Terzi, who said he should instead respond to the allegations raised in the indictment. Bayram replied that he would tackle the charges soon enough but wanted to put what he had experienced in the record, saying this was his first opportunity to speak out after 13 months in pre-trial detention. In a flagrant breach of trial procedure, Terzi continued his interruptions, saying he had sent him to the Council of Forensic Medicine (Adli Tıp Kurumu, or ATK) for examination. Bayram said he would talk about that as well. Yet the judge made a further warning that if Bayram prolonged his statement, it would shorten the time for other defendants in the trial. The judge’s intervention was out of line, and he also mocked him, made political statements and displayed his bias against the defendant, the transcripts of the hearing reveal.

Bayram went on sharing his experiences on his second day in custody, during which he was taken to a doctor of internal medicine on a referral from the emergency room examination a day earlier. The doctor ordered an X-ray, from which he determined that Bayram’s lungs displayed serious problems. He also made an urgent referral for the patient to see a pulmonologist. “The police did not take me to the specialist, however,” Bayram complained, adding, “They [the police officers] told me they would take my statement right away and then send me on my way.”

On his third day in custody, he was supposed to give the statement and be released as promised. However, on orders from the prosecutor, Bayram was taken to court, where the judge ruled for his arrest. His health problems continued and in fact worsened in prison. He was rushed to the emergency ward nine times, had trouble breathing in his overcrowded cell and developed an ailment in his liver in addition to the already poor condition of his lungs. Problems with his urinary tract, high blood pressure and back and leg pains deteriorated further.

Mehmet Emin Bayram’s court testimony.

According to a motion filed by his lawyer, Nesrin Öztürk, his lungs were operating at 40 percent capacity but were stable and under monitoring by his doctors. She submitted half a dozen hospital records verifying his pre-detention health. Bayram’s lungs worsened in prison because he was put into a jail of 40 people with capacity for only 10. She said her client’s health had deteriorated so badly that he was at risk of a heart attack, brain hemorrhage and paralysis. The prison administration also refused to take him to the nearby Silivri State Hospital despite the fact that several appointments had been booked for a medical examination and treatment.

The prison referred him to a state-run ATK hospital where he was hurriedly examined by a doctor who scandalously decided that he was fit for prison without even bothering to run any medical tests. His lawyer challenged the decision and asked for a comprehensive review by medical experts at a state hospital, but the prison officials refused to take him there. Both lawyer Öztürk and her client repeatedly petitioned to obtain his medical records from the prison infirmary where Bayram was treated many times in emergency situations, but the officials refused to turn them over.

The old man responded to the serious accusations of terrorism leveled against him in the indictment by the prosecutor. One piece of evidence presented against him was a deposit made in 2014 to his account At Bank Asya, once Turkey’s largest participation bank that had been owned by shareholders close to the Gülen movement. The prosecutor alleged that the deposit was made on the orders of Fethullah Gülen after Erdoğan attempted to spark a run on the bank with public and unfounded accusations. Bayram denied the charges and said he had been using Bank Asya’s services since 1998 because of their competitive rates and favorable terms for his business transactions. He said he received his government pension in this bank account and paid invoices on the same bank. Bayram also refuted allegations that he increased his balance at the bank in 2014 and presented statements proving that he actually withdrew all his money from Bank Asya in March 2014 to give as a loan to his son.

Bayram, a long-time businessman and well-known figure in Istanbul’s Üsküdar district, told the court he could not even pay his property and municipal taxes for the first time in his life because the authorities had frozen his bank accounts, put a lien on his properties so that he could not liquidate his assets or collect income from leased properties. “I have a sick wife who needs constant care and a 98-year-old mother who also needs care and who does not even know that I’m in prison,” he explained. He said the court needed to remove the lien on his assets and properties so that he could collect income to support his family and settle his debts. Underlining that his business had never suffered before, never had legal problems with any of his business partners and never had an unpaid debt, Bayram said his reputation and business interests had been destroyed after his unlawful arrest in 2017.

He was tried in a case involving Kaynak Holding, a major conglomerate and the largest publisher in Turkey, which was unlawfully seized by the Erdoğan government on fabricated charges of terrorism in November 2015. Kaynak, a group that operated 22 major companies under its umbrella, was owned and operated by businesspeople seen as affiliated with the Gülen movement. The prosecutor accused him in the case file of doing business with Kaynak and its affiliated companies. Yet the defense presented documents showing that he had no relationship with any of the Kaynak firms but had made a donation to an organization affiliated with the Gülen movement when the government had no problems with the group.

Bayram’s abuse and ill treatment in prison and detention, documented in his testimony and the defense statement in court docket No. 2018/82, is only the tip of the iceberg of the widespread torture that was carried out at different levels and to varying degrees in Turkey. This alarming situation and relevant cases have been covered by the UN and nongovernmental organizations in recent years.