Turkey Fires Back at US Religious Freedom Report
World
Ankara - Saeed Abdulrazek
Ankara has fired back at a scathing report drafted by the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which described Fethullah Gulen as a “cleric” while Turkey sees him the head of a terrorist organization. According to the report, “in 2019, religious freedom conditions in Turkey remained worrisome, with the perpetuation of restrictive and intrusive governmental policies on religious practice and a marked increase in incidents of vandalism and societal violence against religious minorities." “Throughout the year, the Turkish government continued to dismiss, detain, and arrest individuals affiliated with, or accused of affiliation with, the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen,” the report said. Ankara has demanded the extradition of Gulen, accusing him of being the mastermind of the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said that "the report contains baseless, unaccredited and vague allegations as in the past years, while trying to portray isolated incidents as violations of religious freedoms through far-fetched accusations." Highlighting the importance attached by Turkey to protect religious freedom, including that of religious minorities, he said his country made it clear that it would not tolerate any harm to the religious freedoms of its people. "The labeling of the Operation Peace Spring area as an 'occupation zone' nevertheless is a contradictory and inconsistent approach," he said, adding that Turkey's legitimate security concerns on its Syrian border had been acknowledged by the US itself in 2019. "This clearly reveals that the purpose of the report is not to protect religious rights and freedoms," the spokesman underlined. The US report came amid an endeavor by Erdogan to mend ties with the US by sending a shipment of medical supplies to face the COVID-19 outbreak.
from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2262091/turkey-fires-back-us-religious-freedom-report
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