[OPINION] Corruption behind the mask of religion

 

When allegations emerged that Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya, a former minister and one of the most senior figures in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP,) and her husband had turned a combined investment of about 163 million Turkish lira ($3.3 million) into more than 2 billion lira (about $41 million) in proceeds from stock sales within months, Kaya resigned from her positions in the party.

The figures were recently disclosed by opposition politician Zeynel Emre.

Yet while Turkey and the world were watching what has been described as one of the country’s biggest financial scandals, Kaya had been part of Erdoğan’s delegation at the United Nations summit, appearing as though nothing unusual had happened.

The Kaya couple, who are widely regarded as being close to the Erdoğan family and his political circle, reportedly invested about 163 million lira between them, much of it in Özata Denizcilik shares, beginning in April 2026.

According to allegations made by New Party spokesperson Emre, Kaya invested about 63.4 million lira ($1.3 million) and later withdrew about 1.34 billion lira ($27.3 million), while her husband, İlyas Kaya, invested about 99.7 million lira ($2 million) and withdrew about 826 million lira ($16.9 million). Emre alleged that they sold their holdings before the financial crisis and market turmoil that erupted in mid-September.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Turkish investors were caught in the collapse. The crisis has affected more than 450,000 investors across 131 funds, with more than $18 billion in assets held in funds now being liquidated.

The Kaya couple have reportedly transferred approximately 2.2 billion lira ($44.9 million) to an account designated by the Ministry of Treasury and Finance.

But returning the money does not, by itself, establish that they committed a crime or constitute a legal admission of wrongdoing. Their transactions, their source of information and the circumstances surrounding the trades still require independent investigation.

Prosecutors have since moved to freeze the assets of Kaya and her husband as part of the fund investigation.

That raises much bigger questions.

Why did no one in Erdoğan’s government seriously ask how a senior ruling-party figure and her husband acquired the capital to make such a large investment, why they invested in this particular stock at precisely that time, and how they managed to exit after such a spectacular rise in its value?

How can a stock rise so dramatically in only a few months without attracting extraordinary scrutiny? And when such extraordinary and potentially manipulative movements occur, why did the institutions responsible for monitoring the stock market and protecting investors fail to intervene earlier?

These questions are particularly important because the institutions responsible for regulating and overseeing Turkey’s financial markets are headed by people appointed by the government and operating within Erdoğan’s political system.

And there is an even bigger question.

How was a crisis involving 131 funds with assets worth more than $18 billion allowed to develop in the first place? Who benefited from the extraordinary price movements now under investigation?

There is also a striking contrast in the way Erdoğan’s government treats political opponents and figures close to the ruling establishment. Opposition figures, including İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, have been arrested and imprisoned amid corruption allegations. In Kaya’s case, prosecutors have now moved to freeze her and her husband’s assets, but neither has been detained or charged over the alleged trades. Where is the same level of scrutiny?

And why did Kaya remain silent when the allegations first emerged? Her resignation statement said she was stepping aside so the allegations could be investigated independently, but she did not directly address Emre’s detailed claims about the trades.

If opposition politicians had not publicly disclosed her name and the details of the transactions, would she have voluntarily come forward to explain how she and her husband had allegedly made such extraordinary gains from these trades?

But perhaps the most painful question is not financial. It is moral.

Erdoğan, Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya and many other figures in the ruling party regularly present themselves to the public through religious language, symbols and imagery.

What happens to religion when politicians who invoke it so frequently become associated with privilege, extraordinary wealth and allegations of corruption?

What happens when religious language becomes a political shield against demands for transparency and accountability?

What does it do to faith when politicians who constantly invoke Islam and religious values are accused of benefiting from extraordinary financial transactions while ordinary citizens bear the losses?

And do genuinely religious people recognize the damage that this kind of Islamist politics, using religion as a political shield, can inflict on religion itself?

The AKP’s rise to power was fueled in large part by the sense of grievance created in the 1990s, when Turkey’s secular establishment imposed severe restrictions on women who wore the headscarf, particularly in universities and public institutions.

Today, however, the AKP has taken the repression it once condemned to a level far beyond what those old regimes imposed on their opponents. And there is a particularly striking irony in the fact that one of the figures now at the center of corruption allegations is herself a woman who wears the headscarf.

Sadly, this also seems to have vindicated the warnings that Islamist politicians may embrace democracy, justice and freedoms most enthusiastically when they are in opposition. Once they gain power, the temptation can be to treat those principles as instruments rather than universal values.

Erdoğan himself has long been widely quoted as expressing such an instrumental view of democracy during his years as mayor of İstanbul: “Democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you reach your destination, then you get off.”

*Abdülhamit Bilici is the former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Zaman daily who currently lives in exile in Washington, D.C.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Turkish Minute. Turkishminute