Turkish religious authority withdraws Ditib chairman

The Turkish religious authority Diyanet has dismissed the chairman of the mosque association Ditib, Kazim Türkmen, from his position as a religious authority in Germany. After a WELT request, Ditib published a press release on the processes. According to this, Türkmen's four-year term of office has ended. He returned to his main task in Turkey on August 13, 2022. This is "common practice".

However, Türkmen will continue to work in his honorary position as Ditib national chairman until a general assembly is held in the near future and a new board is elected. It is not yet clear who will succeed him.

Türkmen was elected Ditib chairman in January 2019. He was considered comparatively moderate. Under his predecessor Nevzat Yasar Asikoglu, Ditib was involved in a serious espionage scandal, among other things. Ditib imams were suspected of having spied on followers of the movement of the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen on behalf of the Diyanet. The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office dropped the investigation in December 2017.

Criticism of Türkmen has recently been raised from circles of the Turkish governing party AKP and its European lobby organization UID. The reason: Ditib's alleged political restraint on the anniversary of the attempted coup in Turkey on July 15, 2016. Unlike sermons in Turkish Diyanet mosques, Ditib mosques did not explicitly refer to the "martyrs" of the night of the coup.

The former Ditib functionary Murat Kayman also pointed out on Twitter that Türkmen's participation in breaking the fast at the invitation of the Green Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, had caused criticism in Turkey. Özdemir is a harsh critic of the AKP government.

In Turkey, the election campaign for the presidential and parliamentary elections next year is picking up speed these days. In mid-August, the Diyanet is said to have gathered Turkish provincial muftis for a “crisis meeting”. According to a report in the government-critical newspaper Cumhuriyet, Diyanet President Ali Erbas swore the imams to support the ruling AKP party. Critics also rate Ditib as the "long arm" of the Erdogan government.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution informed WELT AM SONNTAG in the spring that meetings between AKP officials and representatives of party-affiliated associations in Germany have been increasing since 2021. There is a "considerable mobilization potential".