Turkish-German Mosque Association Planned To Host Homophobic And Anti-Semitic Historian

Ger­man media is report­ing that a branch of a Turk­ish-Ger­man mosque asso­ci­a­tion was spon­sor­ing an event fea­tur­ing Ahmet Şimşir­gil, a Turk­ish his­to­ri­an known for homo­pho­bic and anti-Semit­ic con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries. Accord­ing to Die Welt report:

March 21, 2021 The Rhineland-Palati­nate region­al asso­ci­a­tion of the mosque asso­ci­a­tion DITIB is hand­ing out invi­ta­tions to an event with a his­to­ri­an known for anti-Zion­ist and homo­pho­bic con­spir­a­cy myths. The asso­ci­a­tion aims to coop­er­ate in the teach­ing of Islam. It is an explo­sive appear­ance that was planned at the Rhineland-Palati­nate state asso­ci­a­tion of the Ger­man-Turk­ish mosque asso­ci­a­tion DITIB. On Sun­day evening, the con­tro­ver­sial Turk­ish his­to­ri­an Ahmet Şimşir­gil was to appear there at an online event. […]

Only on Sat­ur­day, the his­to­ri­an appeared on the Turk­ish tele­vi­sion sta­tion TGRT Haber, which is close to Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AKP par­ty, and once again showed his homo­pho­bic atti­tude. The top­ic was Turkey’s with­draw­al from the Istan­bul Con­ven­tion, a Coun­cil of Europe con­ven­tion to com­bat vio­lence against women. Through the inter­na­tion­al treaty, the West has tried to infil­trate Turkey with the LGBT lob­by (the acronym stands for les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al, and trans­gen­der, edi­tor’s note) that it finances, he said. This would destroy fam­i­ly struc­tures and spread homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, he said. “If they infect Turkey with this dis­ease, the entire Islam­ic world will fall with it,” Şimşir­gil added. Erdo­gan had signed the treaty him­self after it was draft­ed in 2011. […]

On his YouTube chan­nel, the videos have names like “Vat­i­can — cen­ter of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty” or “Zion­ist intrigues that destroyed the Ottoman Empire.” In August 2020, he por­trayed the so-called Islam­ic State on Twit­ter as a prod­uct of the “ter­ror­ist state of Israel”.

[Trans­lat­ed by DeepL with edits]

Read the rest here.

The arti­cle notes that DITIB lat­er can­celed the event with­out pro­vid­ing a reason.

DITIB, or the Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs, man­ages over 900 mosques in Ger­many. The Turk­ish Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet) deter­mines the the­o­log­i­cal guide­lines for the imams’ ser­mons, and the Turk­ish con­sulate pays their salaries. Ear­li­er this month, the GIOR report­ed that the head of the Göt­tin­gen branch of DITIB resigned over accu­sa­tions of anti­semitism. Oth­er GIOR report­ing about DITIB includes:

• In Decem­ber 2020, we report­ed that DITIB col­lab­o­rat­ed with Mil­lî Görüş to influ­ence the Turk­ish dias­po­ra in France.

• In Novem­ber 2020, we report­ed that Turk­ish-Ger­man asso­ci­a­tions protest­ed a Turk­ish offi­cial’s request that DITIB sup­ply can­di­dates for Turk­ish teach­ing posi­tions in mosques.

• In Octo­ber 2020, we report­ed that the head of DITIB had asked the orga­ni­za­tion’s stu­dent dorm coor­di­na­tors to encour­age their stu­dents to work for the organization.

UPDATE:

Fur­ther report­ing has indi­cat­ed that the head of the DITIB branch has since resigned over the inci­dent, and the local gov­ern­ment has called upon DITIB to issue a statement

Because of the then with­drawn invi­ta­tion of Sim­sir­gil, who is accused of anti-Zion­ist and homo­pho­bic state­ments, the state gov­ern­ment, for the first time since the sign­ing of tar­get agree­ments on April 1, 2020, approached one of the four Islam­ic asso­ci­a­tions and request­ed a state­ment. “Pub­lic state­ments from the invit­ed guest are known to be in clear con­trast to the under­stand­ing con­clud­ed in the tar­get agree­ment,” a spokesman for the respon­si­ble Min­istry of Cul­ture explained. After DITIB’s state­ment, the state gov­ern­ment will decide “what con­se­quences it will derive for the tar­get agree­ment process from this incident.”

[Trans­lat­ed by DeepL with edits]