Author: Zaman Australia

“Turkey has become known as a mafia state and the evidence suggests that this is the case, now more than ever,” according to the Global Organized Crime Index 2021, which was published on Tuesday by a global initiative with funding from the US and the EU.

Countries were given a score on a scale of one to 10 in the index, with one the least activity and 10 the highest. With a criminality score of 6.89, Turkey was ranked the 12th worst country of 193 UN member states, worse than Syria, Lebanon and Venezuela.

“The Turkish government often leverages certain criminal markets, such as the gold and oil trade, human smuggling and arms trafficking, for its own benefit and political purpose,” the study said.

The index, published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), provides the first ever assessment of illicit economies in all 193 UN member states.

According to the study, depending on political circumstances and geopolitical relations with other countries, the Turkish government chooses to “either tighten or ease its control over organized criminal activity.”

“State-embedded individuals are thought to be involved in illegally transferring weapons to Salafi-Jihadist groups fighting in Syria and Libya, as well as providing weapons to paramilitary groups in Turkey,” the report said. “Organized crime and state-embedded individuals have extremely strong and complex links, dating back many decades and continuing to today.”

According to the report Turkish organized criminal gangs control the wholesale importation of heroin into Europe. Based on an increase in acetic anhydride seizures, a key precursor for processing morphine into heroin, the report suggested that heroin production is on the rise in Turkey, with laboratories scattered across Istanbul and in eastern provinces at the border.

The report underlined that cooperation between Turkey and the US Drug Enforcement Agency has weakened considerably since 2016, which has damaged the Turkish National Police’s ability to deal with drug trafficking.

The illegal arms trade is also pervasive in Turkey, the study said, with firearm use and arms trafficking on the rise in recent years. Overall, Turkey plays a role as simultaneously a source, transit and destination country to greater or lesser degrees

In terms of human trafficking and smuggling, Turkey is a key player in the transnational markets, according to the report. “Human trafficking, a prominent criminal market in Turkey, is characterized predominantly by trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labour,” it said. “Human trafficking is concentrated largely in the country’s tourist areas, in metropolitan cities and in cities at the country’s borders.”

The report also highlighted what it considered to be severe concerns regarding the use of extradition processes and requests by the Turkish government as a political tool. “[Turkish government] also engages in illegal renditioning of suspected coup plotters,” the report said. “Concerns have been raised about the Turkish government’s prolific abuse of INTERPOL’s red-notice system to unfairly target journalists, activists and political opponents living abroad.”

In a report published in August 2021, the Stockholm Center for Freedom detailed how the Turkish government, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has abused INTERPOL in various ways. SCF

In a parliamentary question to Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, opposition MP Mustafa Yeneroğlu sought information on the whereabouts of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, who went missing 25 months ago and is feared to have been abducted by Turkish intelligence.

Democracy and Progress (DEVA) lawmaker Yeneroğlu asked if the disappearance of Tunç is being investigated properly by security authorities.

Tunç disappeared in Ankara on August 6, 2019 in broad daylight, leaving no trace behind.

Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit, who had been missing since late 2020 and was suspected of being a victim of enforced disappearance, has been recently found and is currently in a prison in Ankara.

Yusuf Bilge Tunç’s father, Mustafa, said he was happy that Küçüközyiğit was finally found but was pained that his son was still missing. “I have been waiting for some news of his whereabouts for 25 months. Will I also be able to hear from him soon?” he asked.

Tunç’s car was found in a remote area 45 days after he vanished in Ankara’s GİMAT shopping mall. His family immediately called the police; yet the police showed no real interest in his disappearance. “The police only conducted a crime scene investigation six months after we found the car and contacted them,” said Mustafa Tunç. “We had already removed the car from where we found it so the investigation was really a formality.”

Although the family was afraid he had been abducted, the police dismissed their fears, saying: “He might have fled and left his car behind. Take a look at the CCTV footage. He will return.”

Tunç worked at Turkey’s Undersecretariat for the Defense Industries, the government agency responsible for defense procurement, and he was summarily fired by an executive decree after a July 15, 2016 coup attempt.

According to rights organizations, enforced disappearances have become worryingly common in Turkey, and most disappearances were not effectively investigated by prosecutors.

Nearly 30 people have reportedly been abducted by Turkish intelligence since 2016. Most of the abductions targeted members of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. Erdoğan intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

Many of the abductees mysteriously reappeared in police custody in Ankara after six to nine-month absences. Apparently intimidated, most of them had kept their silence after their reappearance.

Speaking at a court hearing in February 2020, one of the abductees, Gökhan Türkmen, revealed that he had been held incommunicado at a black site in Ankara run by Turkey’s intelligence agency and subjected to severe torture during his 271-day stay. Türkmen was the object of threats and was sexually harassed and abused during his enforced disappearance. He also alleged that he was visited in prison and threatened no less than six times by officials who introduced themselves as intelligence officers, pressuring him to retract his allegations of abduction and torture made at the February hearing. SCF

Turkish authorities seized the bank account of Nazan Bozkurt, a former public servant summarily fired from her job by an executive decree in 2017, after a TL 281,000 ($32,000) administrative fine was imposed on her for participating in a protest, Turkish media reported.

According to notifications issued by the tax office, Bozkurt was hit with the fine for violating the law on misdemeanors. Speaking to the Bianet news website, Bozkurt said the seizure of her bank account was a surprise as her fines had been cancelled by administrative courts.

“I had 700 different fines cancelled by various courts, however, the tax office still seized my bank account,” she said.

Bozkurt said she would object the seizure with court documents proving the fines had been canceled.

Bozkurt was one of a number of former public servants protesting summary dismissals on Ankara’s Yüksel Street. The protestors demanded reinstatement to their jobs and were detained on August 13, 2020. Bozkurt, along with Acun Karadağ, Alev Şahin, Mehmet Dersulu, Mahmut Konuk and Armağan Özbaş, was arrested 10 days later.

Although Bozkurt was subsequently released and acquitted, she was still not reinstated to her job. Speaking to the Euronews Turkish service, Bozkurt said she had “been subjected to a lot of mistreatment” during and after the protests.

Bozkurt and other purge victims had been protesting human rights violations in Turkey and the purge of public servants since November 2016. They mainly gathered on Ankara’s Yüksel Street, in front of a human rights monument. The protests first started with two dismissed academics, Nuriye Gülmen and Semih Özakça, demanding their jobs back. Both academics later went on a hunger strike and were arrested on the 76th day of their protest. After months of imprisonment, Gülmen and Özakça were finally released.

The monument became a symbol of resistance and demand for justice after other purge victims and activists joined them. Turkish police have notoriously used excessive force against the protestors on Yüksel Street.

A total of 622,646 people have been the subject of investigation and 301,932 have been detained as part of a purge after the coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The government also removed more than 130,000 civil servants from their jobs.

Former public servants were not only fired from their jobs; they were also banned from working again in the public sector and getting a passport. The government also made it difficult for them to work formally in the private sector. Notes were put on the social security database about dismissed public servants to deter potential employers. SCF