Three people imprisoned by Turkey’s courts over preventing imams from reciting Sala on night of coup attempt

Three people, including a neighborhood administrator (mukhtar), were imprisoned by Turkish courts with charge of their alleged intervention into Sala prayers recited by a local imams in order to mobilize people to resist putschists during the night of failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

Ahmet Yılmaz, a neighborhood administrator (mukhtar), who allegedly intervened in Sala prayers recited by a local imam in order to encourage people into streets on coup night, was arrested by a Turkish court.

Sala is a religious call read to announce a funeral ceremony at mosques while it used to be issued to announce difficult times at wars during Ottoman era as well. Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) called on some 110,000 imams across the country to loudly read Sala prayers through minarets in bid to mobilize citizens against the coup attempt late July 15.

According to the Diken news portal, Yılmaz, the head of the Musababa neighborhood in Düzce is accused of forcibly silencing an imam while he was reciting Sala to call civilians to take to the streets to fight against soldiers attempting to overthrow the government.

Moreover, E.T. and his brother-in-law E.K., the two Sivas men who allegedly intervened in Sala prayers recited by a local imam during the night of July 15,  coup attempt, were also sentenced to 13.5 years in jail each on Friday.

According to media, the pair forcibly tried to prevent an imam in Sivas’ Sızır town from reciting the Sala call, threatening him with knife. A Sivas court has sentenced the two in 13.5 years in prison on accusation that they had tried to help an attempt to abolish the constitutional order.

The last two times that the ezan and the sala were enchanted outside of ritual time occurred before the Republic of Turkey which was established in 1923. During World War I, as the British and French laid to siege İstanbul at the Battle of Gallipoli, Ottomans heard the Ezan and the Sala sounding across the Marmara Sea. (SCF with turkeypurge.com) May 27, 2017

 

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