Ömer Çelik, spokesperson for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), said the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel committed a hate crime against Türkiye’s Alevi community.

Özel said in an interview on Saturday that the AK Party viewed cemevis, places of worship for the community, as “houses of merriment” and that was the reason that the government set up an agency for Alevis under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Çelik responded that Özel’s remarks were “political slander” and constituted a hate crime against Alevis. He called on the CHP to engage in responsible politics and not to politicize the values of Turkish citizens.

“No one can cast a shadow on the deep-rooted admiration and relations between the AK Party, our president and Alevis,” Çelik wrote in a social media post on Sunday.

The CHP has long boasted of garnering votes from the Alevi community, but it failed to govern the country for decades, especially after successive losses to the AK Party in the past two decades.

The Alevi faith is defined as a combination of Shiite Islam, the Bektashi Sufi order and Anatolian folk culture rather than as a separate religion. In Türkiye, Alevis comprise a large community with approximately 20 million followers, although official figures are unavailable.

The community has long raised concerns over the public recognition of their identity, the legal status of cemevis and education issues, including the right for Alevi students to opt out of compulsory religion classes. Currently, cemevis are classified as foundations under the Interior and Culture and Tourism Ministries, rather than as official houses of worship, which limits their access to state funding available to mosques, churches and synagogues of recognized religious minorities.

The Alevi-Bektashi Culture and Cemevi Presidency was established three years ago under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and currently provides financial support to more than 2,000 cemevis nationwide.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan played a pivotal role in establishing the presidency in 2022, aiming to reach out to the long-neglected community.

Since its foundation, the presidency has endorsed dozens of civic society organizations linked to the community and responded to several requests. The presidency mainly helps cemevis to cover maintenance and repair fees, as well as utility use fees, such as water and electricity.