On April 28-29, German President Joachim Gauck paid an official visit to Turkey that became more controversial than expected. The reason is that Gauck, who followed the usual diplomatic routines, criticized the Turkish government on four sensitive issues: its recent bans on social media, tensions with the Constitutional Court, interference with the judiciary and pressure on the media. In response, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed Gauck, accusing him of "telling lies." He also criticized him for allegedly "supporting Turkish atheists in Germany" and acting like "he is still a pastor," leaving the connection between atheism and pastorhood murky.

Certain voices in the Turkish media also criticized the German president for his apparently unwelcomed remarks. The most creative punch came from the tabloid Takvim, an unwavering supporter of the government. In a banner headline, Takvim bashed Gauck, bestowing on him the surprising honorific "The imam of Germany!" The logic was that Gauck, being such an outspoken critic of the Turkish government, had acted as if he were a key figure in the Fethullah Gulen movement, the former Erdogan ally that the prime minister recently redefined as public enemy No. 1. "The German president acted like the imam of Germany," Takvim explained, "by supporting the prosecutors and the police of the [Gulen] community."

It should be noted that Takvim is not a paper that strives to be taken seriously. A year ago, it published a fake and scandalous interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Its headlines are often feverish and over the top. Still, the reflex of accusing the German president of serving the Gulen movement simply because of remarks critical toward Erdogan reveals something about the current political paranoia in Turkey.

This paranoia is not the one that suspects that certain members of the Gulen movement have assumed key positions in the judiciary and the police and have used their official powers for their own, if not sectarian, objectives. This was argued for years by various independent writers, such as Ahmet Sik, who was notoriously detained for a year (2011-2012) after writing a book on this very topic, and former police chief Hanefi Avci, who is still in prison for making hard-to-believe accusations. It is quite plausible to imagine that the prosecutors and the police who launched the corruption investigation on Dec. 17, condemned by Erdogan as a "coup attempt," could be members of the movement by looking at the support they have received from affiliated media.