Turkish hacker group takes over Religious Affairs website

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Hürriyet photo

Hacker group RedHack hacked the website of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, on the 20th anniversary of the Sivas massacre. The group announced the hack on its Twitter account. 

“This is an answer to those who dine for Ramadan at five-star hotels but burn people at three-star ones,” the group tweeted at midnight last night, in reference to the arson attack in which 33 mostly Alevi intellectuals and two hotel workers were killed on July 2, 1993. 

“The Justice and Development Party [AKP] triggerman the Religious Affairs Directorate cannot represent Muslims,” the tweet added. 

The group also released a database, including usernames and passwords, to enter the website. This allowed users to add new headlines to the website. One of the added sections read, “Forgive me, Religious Affairs, I entered wearing shoes,” in reference to the Dolmabahçe Mosque incident, in which Gezi Park protesters took shelter in a historical mosque to avoid tear gas and police interventions. Since the incident, the sheltering protesters were targeted by the prime minister for wearing shoes in the mosque, as well as for consuming alcohol - a claim that has been repeatedly denied by the mosque’s muezzin. 

RedHack is known for its anti-government stance, and has hacked into multiple government websites in the past, including the Ankara Police Directorate and the Foreign Affairs Ministry.