Edip Yuksel is Arrested in Turkey Upon the Complaint of a Sunni Cult Leader

Edip Yuksel is Arrested in Turkey Upon the Complaint of a Sunni Cult Leader

(This letter is sent to you upon the instruction of Edip Yuksel, who anticipated another arrest by the Turkish authorities.)


After giving three lectures at Oxford University and London on his recent books Manifesto for Islamic Reform and Quran: a Reformist Translation, Edip Yuksel went to Istanbul to give a series of lectures and participate in events and media interviews to promote Islamic Reform. However, upon the complaint of a cult leader, Edip Yuksel is charged with the crimes of insulting Turkishness and the Turkish generals.


Edip Yuksel is arrested by the Turkish police for insulting the Turkish flag, government, and the Turkish generals in his articles published at his website, www.19.org. The website has been blocked by Turkish courts for more than two years for an article written by Edip Yuksel critical of the Turkish cult leader, Adnan Oktar who uses Harun Yahya nickname on hundreds of books concocted by his followers. The title of the article: “Harun Yahya or Adnan Oktar: The Promised Mahdi?”


Attached several correspondence and two articles by Edip Yuksel on this issue.


Please share this letter with your contacts and send it to the US State department, Human Rights Organizations, and Media.



EDIP YUKSEL is an American-Turkish-Kurdish author and activist who spent four years in Turkish prisons in the 1980″s for his political writings and activities promoting an Islamic revolution in Turkey. After several month of heated debate on the role and nature of Hadith and Sunna and finally reading a landmark book, he experienced a paradigm change in 1 July 1986 transforming him from a Sunni Muslim leader to a reformed muslim or rational monotheist. Edip Yuksel has written more than twenty books and hundreds of articles on religion, politics, philosophy and law in Turkish, and numerous articles and books in English. His recent English books are Quran: a Reformist Translation, and Manifesto for Islamic Reform. Edip is the founder of 19.org, and the Islamic Reform organization. His personal site is yuksel.org. After receiving his bachelor degrees from the University of Arizona in Philosophy and Near Eastern Studies, Edip received his law degree from the same university. Edip is an Adjunct Philosophy professor at Pima Community College, and teaches various classes at his children”s school. He is fluent in Turkish, English and Classic Arabic; proficient in Persian, and barely conversant in Kurdish, his mother tongue.


Edip Yuksel, J.D.
www.19.org
www.yuksel.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.brainbowpress.com
www.muslimheretics.com
http://groups.google.com/group/19org
Turkish Books: www.ozanyayincilik.com
Peace,