Erdoğan repeats false allegations about Gezi protests

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Meeting NGO representatives at an iftar event in İstanbul yesterday (April 27), President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan talked about the verdict in the 2013 Gezi Park protests and Monday's (April 25) verdict in the Gezi case.

In his speech, Erdoğan repeated the false claims from years ago, saying that the protesters had drunk alcoholic drinks in the Bezm-i Alem Mosque in Dolmabahçe, İstanbul, which was used as an infirmary during the protests.

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"Remember the Dolmabahce Mosque. The garbage heads who sit in the mosque with cans of beer came to our office [in Dolmabahçe]. They walked to Taksim Square together with the Gezi [protesters]. Are these libertarians?"

The footage that Erdoğan said, "We will publish next week" on June 10, 2013, has not been published for 463 weeks.

Moreover, the imam, muezzin and cleaning personnel of the mosque refuted the claims that were repeated by Erdoğan many times. Fuat Yıldırım, the muezzin, was appointed at a mosque in the Kayabaşı village on the outskirts of İstanbul.

Kemal Öztürk, the then-general director of the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA), said in a book he wrote after his resignation that "The photo could have been staged. We did not broadcast it."

"I am a cleric, I can't lie"

In his statement at the İstanbul Security Directorate, Yıldırım said, "I am a cleric and because of that, I can't lie."

"I did not see anyone drinking or holding a liquor bottle inside the mosque. I don't say what I haven't seen. Maybe some drank, I don't know. I just saw a bottle similar to a beer bottle in front of the glass outside the mosque. But I didn't see it inside."

The imam: "I didn't see anyone drinking"

Halil Necipoğlu, the imam of the mosque, also said at the 47th hearing of the case filed against the protesters who took shelter in the mosque on June 12, 2015, that "I didn't see anyone drinking inside the mosque."

"Gas was coming into the mosque from outside. There had been gas starting from the evening hours and continuing at intervals. Its intensity would increase at times.

"I didn't see anyone drinking alcohol inside the mosque. But I saw people who gave the impression that they were drunk.

"I didn't get close to the people. I didn't smell alcohol. But I saw people who gave the impression that they had been drinking alcohol and who were staggering, coming in at times."

Cleaning worker: I saw just one can

At the same hearing, Yaşar Tüylü, a cleaning worker at the mosque, said he had only seen one beer can.

"On June 1, there were about 30 people, including the mosque community and tourists ... Among those who came, there were injured ones. There were also those who were brought in unconscious. I was also affected by the gas. The carpets of the mosque were not damaged as we laid mats at the entrance."

"It could have been staged"

Another person who refuted Erdoğan's statements was Kemal Öztürk, who was his press advisor when he was the prime minister. Öztürk, who later became the general director of Anadolu Agency, mentioned the Gezi Park events in a book he published after he resigned from AA.

"Of course, as the agency of the state, we could be reporting more on the damage done to public property and the violence that the citizens were subjected to. However, we never pursued a policy of blackout.

"A photo showing beer cans in the Dolmabahçe Mosque reached us. We did not publish them because of the suspicion that the beer cans might have been put there as a result of a mise-en-scene." (HA/VK)