A number Islamic books by Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, a Bible and some other religious publications including the one on Jesus Christ have been confiscated by the Turkish police as evidence as part of an investigation against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
According to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency on Wednesday, a Mardin man, identified as S.A., was arrested in an operation against PKK. Police made a search at his home and seized copies of some books written by Gülen, a Bible and many other books, most of which are about Christianity.
Turkey’s political Islamist government has tolerated the radical Islamist publications spreading the ideologies of radical Islamist terror organizations like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Turkey as criminalizing moderate Islamic books. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have revealed following their capture of Syrian town of Tabqa that the ideological indoctrination material for ISIL have been published in Turkey. It is reported by Birgün daily that, a book titled “Şehadet Yolunda Cihad Erleri – Jihad Soldiers on the Path to Martyrdom” written by Harun İlhan, which was seized in ISIL hideouts in Tabqa, shows Turkey as the place of the publication.
As Turkish governments pinned the blame for the July 15, 2016 coup attempt on Gülen and the movement he inspired to, books penned Gülen and those by sympathizers of the movement were banned by government decrees issued under the emergency rule declared following the coup attempt in the country. The Gülen movement denies any involvement in the coup attempt.
The government circles also criticize the movement for its promotion of interfaith activities and dialogue, accusing the group of an alleged cooperation with the “the crusaders” to harm Islam. Earlier, police in many other provinces displayed Gülen’s books as terror evidence. (SCF with turkeypurge.com) May 18, 2017
