President Erdoğan attends Muharram iftar

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with representatives of Alevi and Bektashi associations at Hüseyin Gazi Cemevi and attended the Muharram iftar with the representatives of the Alevi community late on Aug. 8.

“Hussein and his friends, who fought the biggest and most difficult struggle in the history of humanity, are an example for everyone without exception in the struggle for rights and justice,” Erdoğan said at the event.

“While the oppressors, who were the cause and instrument of Karbala in our history, are remembered with hatred, their names are not even pronounced. Evaluating the event of Karbala with such a oneness stance is not a means of separation but, on the contrary, of unity and togetherness,” he stated.

Vice President Fuat Oktay, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy also participated in the program.

In the month of Muharram, the Alevi community commemorates the killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

The visit comes after incidents where five different Alevi institutions were attacked simultaneously in the capital Ankara recently during the Alevi holy month of Muharram. Moreover, the Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Alevi Foundations and the President of the Kartal Cemevi Selami Sarıtaş was attacked in front of his house in Istanbul on Aug. 5.

Nine people were detained on Aug. 9 in connection with the attack on Selami Sarıtaş.