Turkish elections in a religious premises: the Lyon prosecutor’s office seized

2023-05-17 14:45:00

MP Sarah Tanzilli (Renaissance) denounces the organization of the second round of the presidential election in premises linked to a mosque in Décines-Charpieu.

By Raphaël Ruffier-Fossoul, correspondent in Lyon

Turkish citizens living near Lyon and going to vote in the first round of the presidential election.
© EMRAH OPRUKCU / NurPhoto / NurPhoto via AFP

Published on 05/17/2023 at 2:45 p.m.

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CThis time, it does not pass. The member of the 13^e Rhône constituency, Sarah Tanzilli (Renaissance), seized the public prosecutor to denounce the organization of the Turkish presidential election in premises adjoining the mosque of the Union of Turkish-Islamic Cultural Affairs (Ditib, according to the acronym Turkish) in Décines-Charpieu. The second round of the election must indeed be held from May 20 to 24 in the same premises already used for the first round. In the eyes of the majority MP, the choice of location is contrary to the anti-separatism law of 2021 which prohibits, under penalty of one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros, to “organize voting operations for French or foreign political elections in premises usually used for the exercise of worship or used by a religious association”.

Sarah Tanzilli also believes that the choice of this polling station allowed the establishment during the first round of a “climate of terror” by pointing in particular to the threats suffered by the representatives of opposition parties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She recalls that several of them saw the tires of their vehicles punctured and especially that four assessors of the left-wing and ecologist YSP party were violently attacked on Tuesday, May 9, when leaving the polling station, after the polls closed. “The violence committed last week has an irreparable impact on the loss of confidence of certain Franco-Turkish citizens to go to the polls in this context”, confides the elected official, specifying that she is thinking “especially of those who are moreover Kurds, Alevis or Armenians”.

READ ALSOElections in Türkiye: Erdogan in very favorable ballotJoined by Point, the mayor of Décines-Charpieu, Laurence Fautra (LR), also says she is “scandalized” by the holding of this ballot in a mosque in her town. “Neither the consulate, nor the prefecture, nor the association that runs the mosque had the decency to warn us,” she enraged, stressing that the organization of the first round “caused many troubles that the town hall had to manage”, mainly due to “wild parking: the municipal police drew up more than 200 reports for parking offenses and organized the impoundment of vehicles which blocked the car parks of businesses in the sector”.

The anger of the local councilor

“The gate of a company was also broken by people who had parked in its car park and got stuck after closing,” says Laurence Fautra. “I seized the prefect, but it is clear that I am shouting in the desert and that no one answers me. This is the third time that Turkish elections have been held here. In 2018, at least the consul came to see me and the prefecture called me. This time, nothing”, she adds, specifying that the commune welcomes “a strong Armenian community, which naturally saw the organization of these elections here as a provocation”.

Equally “scandalized” by the place chosen for the organization of the ballot, Thierry Lamberthod, the president of the association Amitiés Kurdes Lyon, announces that he will file during the day “a summary freedom procedure before the administrative court of Lyon”.

The Turkish consul, Müslüm Aygün, assures that “only organizational constraints” guided his choice to organize the ballot in the premises of Ditib, an association which depends directly on the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Ankara. “We rent a room, it’s independent of the mosque,” said the diplomat. In 2015, we organized elections for the consulate. There was a long queue outside, we couldn’t park, it bothered the locals… It wasn’t good for anyone,” he explained to the Point early May, recalling that “160,000 Turks are settled in the region, including 80,000 potential voters”.

The prefecture of Lyon remains silent

For its part, the prefecture of Lyon did not wish to make an official response. In the office of the prefect, however, it is estimated that there was “no sufficient legal basis for a ban” and that the hangar rented by the consulate to the Ditib association was “not a place of worship or directly attached to a place of worship. It would therefore not fall within the scope of the prohibitions of the 2021 law.

READ ALSOErdogan or the convulsions of political IslamThe interpretation does not convince Sarah Tanzilli. “For me, the law is unambiguous. There is no doubt that this room is usually used by a religious association and that its use should be prohibited for elections. The defense of the representatives of Ditib is to say that they are “not the only ones” to use it, but this is proof that they are using it”, she exclaims, now waiting for a response from the Lyon public prosecutor’s office to its referral.

“The polling station is adjacent to the mosque, explains for his part Tuna Altinel, academic and representative of the YSP, who is one of the victims of the aggression of May 9. In the queue, you can hear the imam’s calls to prayer. To go to the toilet, you have to cross the mosque…” “The hangar is in the same enclosure as the mosque”, adds Laurence Fautra, for whom, whatever the case, “a foreign election is held in a consulate or an embassy. If their consulate is too small, they buy another.” Contacted, the Lyon prosecutor’s office has not yet responded.