The Nordic Moniotor  reports that an indictment recently filed against a group that is critical of the government in Turkey, public prosecutors cited interfaith dialogue with Jews and Christians as criminal evidence in leveling accusations.

Prosecutors alleged in the indictment submitted to a high criminal court in Istanbul on March 2, 2022 that the Gülen movement, a group opposed to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had established dialogue with Jewish and Christian organizations rather than Muslim and Turkish ones around the globe.

The allegations were incorporated into the indictment by Istanbul deputy chief prosecutors Bülent Basar and Zafer Koç as part of a government campaign to crack down on people believed to be affiliated with the Gülen group.

The accusations reflect how the ruling Islamist elite’s political Islamist ideology, which defines non-Muslims as enemies, has dominance in driving criminal prosecutions in Turkey, a country that has had a poor human rights record in the last decade.

Prsident Erdogan had slammed interfaith dialogue efforts in the past, saying there cannot be dialogue between Islam and Christianity, in a xenophobic speech he delivered to lawmakers in the Pakistani Parliament in November 2016 during an official visit to the country.