Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs Hosts Scouting Camp in Paris

The Turk­ish reli­gious author­i­ty Diyanet has orga­nized a scout­ing camp in the Cor­beil Essonnes sub­urb of the French cap­i­tal Paris. Accord­ing to the left­ist Turk­ish news­pa­per “Sol”:

Octo­ber 10, 2022: Con­tin­u­ing his trip to France, Pres­i­dent of Reli­gious Affairs Ali Erbaş opened the scout­ing camp for reli­gious offi­cials and Inter­na­tion­al The­ol­o­gy Pro­gram stu­dents in Cor­beil-Essonnes, orga­nized joint­ly by the Turk­ish Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs in Paris (DITIB) and the Turk­ish Scout­ing Fed­er­a­tion. Speak­ing at the open­ing, Erbaş said, “Accord­ing to the rules of scout­ing, our teach­ers, friends, broth­ers and sis­ters take care of our young peo­ple in the most beau­ti­ful way in terms of lead­er­ship and guid­ance. They learn the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture. There is a way to pre­serve the moral atti­tude and lin­eage of our youth, and we must show them these ways. Because there are many temp­ta­tions that want to tear the youth away from us. This is one of those ways to keep the youth away from that seduc­tion.” (Trans­lat­ed using deepl.com and edit­ed for clarity)

Read the rest here.

France has closed the Diyanet’s bank accounts, and French Pres­i­dent Macron announced he was end­ing a pro­gram that allowed oth­er coun­tries to send cul­tur­al and lan­guage teach­ers, includ­ing imams, to teach in France with­out inter­fer­ence from French authorities.

The Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Turk­ish: Diyanet İşl­eri Başkan­lığı or Diyanet) is a Turk­ish state insti­tu­tion respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing reli­gious affairs. The Diyanet was found­ed in 1924 to monop­o­lize con­trol of Sun­ni Islam in Turkey under the state. The Diyanet drafts a week­ly ser­mon deliv­ered at all of Turkey’s mosques, and their imams are civ­il ser­vants employed by the state. Start­ing in the 1980s, the Diyanet began to man­age mosques abroad and send imams there to pro­mote Turk­ish Islam. After the Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Par­ty (AKP) came to pow­er in 2002, it quadru­pled the Diyanet’s bud­get and installed lead­ers who sup­port­ed its posi­tions, where­as it pre­vi­ous­ly had been sec­u­lar and inde­pen­dent of state inter­fer­ence. Through orga­ni­za­tions such as DITIB, the Diyanet pro­vides imams and pays imams for Turk­ish mosques abroad, and Diyanet imams have gath­ered intel­li­gence on Turkey’s oppo­nents abroad and report­ed back to the government.