ISTANBUL, TURKEY The leader of an American-based Sufi sect was arrested Thursday in Izmir on charges of praying in a group without a permit and wearing banned religious dress in public.
Aydogan Fuat, also known as Sheik Abdul Kerim Fuat, was arrested while holding a prayer meeting for 40 followers. Police videotaped part of the session and questioned the followers before arresting Fuat. He has been held without bail pending a hearing Tuesday.
A judge is expected to decide whether Fuat should be turned over for trial in the state security court.
An official from the American consulate in Izmir, in the southwest, was not allowed on Monday to visit Fuat, a naturalized American citizen, an assistant said.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Ankara said privacy laws prohibited him from commenting on whether officials had been denied access to Fuat.
Fuat, 44, was born in Turkish Cyprus. He is the spiritual leader of a group with several hundred followers, mostly in New York, and he has conducted services in Turkey for many years, said Meryem Brawley, his assistant.
Sufism is a mystic tradition in Islam, dating from the 8th Century and the Ottoman Empire