Turkish authorities have frozen the pension of jailed Islamic preacher and government critic Alparslan Kuytul, which his daughter said was the family’s sole source of income, the TR724 news website reported.
Meryem Kuytul said Monday that she and her four siblings depend on their father’s pension to cover their living expenses while both parents are in pretrial detention.
Meryem Kuytul argued that blocking the pension was unlawful, citing Article 93 of Turkey’s insurance law, which restricts the seizure of pensions, and Article 128 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows the seizure of assets in criminal investigations under certain conditions. She said the measure effectively punished Kuytul’s children over accusations directed at their father.
It was not immediately clear which judicial authority ordered the freeze, the precise legal basis for the measure or whether the order specifically targeted Kuytul’s pension or the bank account into which it is paid. Turkish authorities have not publicly commented on the measure.
The Furkan movement, founded by Kuytul, has also said bank accounts belonging to other people targeted in the same investigation have been blocked. According to the group, some of those affected receive their salaries or pensions through the accounts.
Kuytul and his wife were among 35 people jailed pending trial on August 23 following simultaneous police raids at 49 locations in six provinces on August 19 as part of an investigation by the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office. Authorities also appointed trustees to five companies and ordered access blocked to 349 social media accounts.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek has said the investigation concerns alleged criminal offenses and the proceeds of crime, rather than the group’s religious beliefs or views.
Kuytul and his supporters, however, say the investigation is politically motivated, pointing to its timing. The raids came a day after Kuytul criticized a police operation targeting another Islamic community, known as the Süleymanlılar, prompting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief advisor, Oktay Saral, to target him on social media and say that his “turn” was coming.
Kuytul, an Islamic scholar and longtime critic of President Erdoğan’s government, founded the Furkan Education and Service Foundation in 1994. The group has frequently criticized the government and has faced repeated police intervention, administrative penalties and criminal investigations.
He was jailed in 2018 after criticizing Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria and opposing its offensive in Afrin. He was acquitted of terrorism-related charges in 2020.
Kuytul was also arrested in 2022 in connection with the abduction of a businessman in Adana, on charges of instigating the deprivation of liberty, extortion, bodily harm and torture, which he denied. He was released pending trial in June 2023.
