The General Directorate of Religious Services, a branch of the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs, plans to carry out services and activities for Syrian refugees living in temporary protection centers in Turkey in the upcoming period.
The General Directorate will establish religious information offices to answer the refugees’ questions about religion and help them in social issues. A total of 100 Syrian refugees will also be employed as imams (religious leader) to provide services under the “Regulation on Work Permits of Foreigners under Temporary Protection.”
The directorate also plans to organize trips for 500 refugee children and youngsters to the provinces of Edirne, Istanbul, Bursa, Manisa, Konya, Kayseri, Amasya, Sivas, Erzurum, Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır and Mardin so that the they will have an idea about Turkey’s religious, cultural and historical background.
Conferences will be held to explain that terrorist organizations such as Daesh and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) and movements such as neo-Salafis abuse Islam, that they have strayed from the Muslim community and that they cannot represent Islam and Muslims. The conferences will aim to protect all refugees and locals, particularly youngsters, from the manipulation of these organizations.
FETÖ terrorists are led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gülen, who orchestrated Turkey's July 15 coup attempt and is the mastermind behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
Turkey currently shelters 235,000 refugees in temporary protection centers. Nearly 228,000 of them are from Syria, while 7,000 are Iraqis. These refugees live in the camps in Hatay, Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, Kilis, Mardin, Kahramanmaraş, Osmaniye, Adıyaman, Adana and Malatya.
