Çatalca Mufti Mehmetalioğlu issues new statement on 'Volkan Konak' row: 'A personal reaction'

Defending himself, Mehmetalioğlu said: "I wanted to express my personal reaction in this way. What did I say? I said 'he croaked on stage.' The word 'croaked' is not a word that constitutes a criminal offence under the law."

Ahmet Mehmetalioğlu said: "On 29 December 2023, the Diyanet sermon was read. While the sermon already contained negative remarks about the New Year, alcohol was also mentioned, of course. But this person named Volkan Konak then made a statement about alcohol. He said: 'Hey, members of the Diyanet, hey President of the Directorate of Religious Affairs — your salaries are paid with taxes collected from our alcohol. So tonight I am going to drink a little more so that we can contribute to your salaries.

Please accept this.' That was his statement. I follow social media and the press closely. I waited for a while. Perhaps he would repent, perhaps his conscience would trouble him and he would come back and apologise to the Diyanet community. He was targeting the entire Diyanet community. Beyond that, he was targeting our imam-hatip schools and Quran courses. I was waiting for an apology, to be more precise. When no apology came and he suddenly lost his life while drinking alcohol on stage, I wanted — entirely as an individual, as someone from within this community, completely outside any official capacity — to express my personal reaction in this way. What did I say? I said 'he croaked on stage.' The word 'croaked' is not a word that constitutes a criminal offence under the law.

It is a word that means 'died' in the Turkish Language Association's dictionary as well. But of course we were in no position to say 'he walked to God's side,' as is said for friends of God. 'Geberdi' is ultimately an Arabic word. It is a word that carries the meaning of 'entered the grave.' Because we have knowledge of Arabic, I used this word to express this death. Otherwise, our view of art and artists has never been the same as our view of Volkan Konak," he said.

Stating that both he and the Diyanet had been made targets, Mehmetalioğlu said: "Ferdi Tayfur died very recently. İbrahim Erkal died. Other artists have died. We never said anything like this about any of them. We expressed our reaction in this way — as a Muslim individual — to an artist who took such a stance against religion, the Diyanet, Quranic verses, and hadith. But as you know, the days when we expressed our reaction coincided with the events at Saraçhane and the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, when a segment of the public was up in arms. When this coincided with that, people we had previously seen at Gezi, people who had behaved disrespectfully toward mosques, stepped in again.

They took this statement off my back and turned it directly into a target aimed at religion, the government, and a political party. That is entirely their own business. We have never had a wrong view of art or artists. But we believe our institution will always do what is necessary against those who blaspheme against God and religion, and as individuals we must also show our own will," he said.

"WE STEPPED IN WITH OUR LAWYER"

Describing what he experienced after the post, Mehmetalioğlu said: "Unwanted incidents occurred during this process. I think most of them acted out of ignorance, and I think many of them attacked deliberately. There were attacks. The attacks came on three fronts — insults, threats, and abuse.

In response, we stepped in with our lawyer. We have identified close to 200 accounts so far. We have filed a criminal complaint against all of them. The investigation is still ongoing.

As long as the insults, threats, and abuse keep coming, the passwords to our social media accounts are with our lawyers. They deal with these matters on a daily basis. And there is something even more striking than social media.

Because there were threats via WhatsApp — people obtaining my personal information and saying they would publish it and do this and that to me — we filed a criminal complaint directly with the prosecutor's office without waiting for our lawyer. The prosecutor's office is currently working on those proceedings," he said.

News Source: İHA