Turkey’s social media has been witnessing attacks against the opposition’s presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu since Friday evening, over what the government supporters call “the sejjade (prayer rug) scandal”.
The attacks on Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), started after a photo showing the politician stepping on a prayer rug with his shoes on was shared on social media.
The photo was taken during a Ramadan reception on Friday evening organised by the İstanbul Platform and led by the former Minister of Justice, İsmail Müftüoğlu at a restaurant. It showed Kılıçdaroğlu with the CHP’s Istanbul branch leader and parliamentary candidate Canan Kaftancıoğlu and another woman, in a room understood to be used by the restaurant as a prayer space for customers.
Hamza Dağ, the deputy head of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), was the first to react to the photo, saying “The place you are stepping on with your shoes is a prayer rug used by Muslims to prostrate themselves”.
The prayer rug is placed on the ground by Muslim worshippers to ensure cleanliness during prayers. Usually prayer rugs are immediately picked up after worship, to prevent anyone from accidentally stepping on them.
The reactions of the pro-government media and AKP supporters to Kılıçdaroğlu’s nistake continued on Saturday with the politician being accused of being unfamiliar with the customs of Turkey’s conservatives and of being disrespectful to Islam.
Some opposition voters on social media complained that, through their negligence, Kılıçdaroğlu and his advisors have given ammunition to government supporters ahead of the 14 May elections.
The differences between secular and conservative life styles in Turkey is one of the main issues the AKP has been using for years to further polarise society. Before Kılıçdaroğlu was nominated as the opposition’s presidential candidate in early March, many in Turkey argued that Turkey’s Sunni Muslims would refrain from voting for him because of his Alevi faith, so he had no chance of winning the election.
Among the many posts piling up to condemn the opposition candidate, one shared by the Islamist cartoonist and actor Hasan Kaçan drew the most attention.
“O Muslim! This prayer rug being stepped on with shoes is you. It is what is sacred to you, your values. It is your mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, spouse, children. It is your past and future that is being trampled on with muddy shoes. Even an enemy would refrain from such an insult. This insult is unacceptable,” he wrote on Twitter.
“This photograph is the manifestation of a mentality today which has persecuted this hallowed nation for years and years, turned its mosques to stables, trampled on what you view as sacred, an enemy of your belief,” he went on.
However, Kaçan found himself in a vulnerable position after many users on Twitter reminded him that he had in the past taken part in advertisements promoting construction amnesties, which cost the lives of tens of thousand people in the 6 February earthquake. Kaçan, who could not answer the question on which act -stepping on a prayer rug or putting people’s lives in danger – constitutes a more severe sin in the eyes of the God, later deleted his tweets.
Meanwhile Kılıçdaroğlu wrote on Twitter, “I am sorry, I am so sorry for not seeing the prayer rug. I would never want to hurt anybody in this world, let alone my nation. I am leaving the judgement of those exploiting this incident and the propaganda apparatus they have been using to the conscience of my nation.”
On Saturday night the CHP leader attended another Ramadan reception organised by the Islamist Felicity Party, which supports Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy. During the reception, Kılıçdaroğlu delivered a speech, stating that he has been facing an organised operation.
Kılıçdaroğlu said there were many who wanted to have photographs taken with him during the incident and the restaurant was very crowded.
“I did not see the prayer rug on the floor. Now they are carrying out an operation using that photograph. Let me say clearly that I do not care about their operation. I am genuinely sorry,” he said.
The former minister Müftüoğlu, who hosted the event on Friday also shared a statement on Facebook, saying that the photographs had been taken in a moment of carelessness in the crowded situation.
“The unfair criticisms against Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu are far from common sense, are unjust. The politics conducted in such cruel, inconsiderate, accusatory language have tired all of us enormously,” Müftüoğlu said.
