Category: Australia

The Turkish Embassy in New Zealand engaged in a campaign of intelligence gathering and profiling of critics and their organizations including a child care center, documents obtained by Nordic Monitor have revealed.

According to an official document, Auckland-based nonprofit organization Pearl of the Islands Foundation Inc. (PIF) was profiled by the Turkish Embassy in Wellington and reported on to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The document was later sent to the police department to build a case against critics of the Erdoğan regime.

The information collected by the embassy was used in a criminal indictment on dubious charges of terrorism against opponents, who have faced an unprecedented crackdown in recent years by the authoritarian government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Gulen movement, a civic group that is highly critical of the Erdoğan government, bears the brunt of the crackdown in terms of the right to dissent and freedom of expression.

Those who were listed in these embassy documents were targeted by a campaign of intimidation and harassment and denied consular services abroad, while their relatives and friends back in Turkey risked the possibility of jail time, asset seizure and prosecution on fabricated criminal charges.

PIF’s stated aim according to its website is “to celebrate diversity and advance social cohesion between cultures to contribute the educational, cultural and overall social well-being of our community through its established institutions, platforms, and activities.” It has promoted a moderate version of Islam against radical views and held seminars and lectures to that effect over the years. It has organized an Anzac study tour and cultural festival and offered Turkish language classes.

The Turkish Embassy document listed PIF’s interfaith community iftar dinner — held in May 2016 at Parliament House in Wellington and attended by members of Parliament, government officials, community leaders and scholars – as if it were a criminal activity and reported the event to headquarters.

In another shocking note, the embassy also surveilled the Little Pearls child care center with branches located in the Owairaka, Mt Roskill and Mt Albert/Puketapapa districts. The center was established in 2014 to provide care and educational services for children aged 3 months to 5 years. The report identified the teachers at the child care center and reported them back to Turkey as well.

Turkish Embassy officials were also concerned by the visit of Deakin University Professor Greg Barton, who was invited by PIF to deliver lectures on extremism, radicalism and a refugee crisis in September 2016. Barton, one of Australia’s leading scholars on terrorism and countering violent extremism, addressed several events as keynote speaker including gatherings held in Parliament and at Victoria University.

The collection of data, amounting to refugee spying or unlawful intelligence gathering by embassy and consulate officials, was done after requests from the Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Department of the Turkish National Police (Kaçakçılık ve Organize Suçlarla Mücadele Daire Başkanlığı, or KOM). According to Turkish law, KOM has no jurisdiction abroad and is not authorized to conduct espionage overseas. The information notes sent by the embassy were later incorporated into a report by KOM on Jan. 30, 2017 and were used in the criminal prosecution of government critics on terrorism charges.

For example, the profiling data collected on the New Zealand organization by the Turkish Embassy was used as evidence in a case concerning Kaynak Holding, a major conglomerate and the largest publisher in Turkey that was unlawfully seized by the Erdoğan government on fabricated charges of terrorism in November 2015. Kaynak, a group that operated 22 major companies under its umbrella, is owned and operated by businesspeople who are seen as affiliated with the Gülen movement.

A donation made to PIF by Kaynak Holding in 2014 that was declared by the company in its filings was considered to be criminal evidence by the Erdoğan government. Nordic Monitor has learned that PIF approached Kaynak as a corporate donor when it was trying to the launch child care centers. Company records listed a one-time funds transfer to PIF as a donation, with nothing illegal about it as it was recorded on the company accounting sheet as part of a corporate social responsibility contribution.

Yet a report prepared by Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), an agency that was often used by the Erdoğan government to investigate critics and their companies on criminal pretexts, listed the legitimate transaction as criminal activity. The report was compiled by MASAK on May 13, 2015 under file No. 2015/MAR (62) after the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office tasked the agency with investigating Kaynak on Feb. 2, 2015 as part of investigation No. 2014/75025.

Hundreds of people and dozens of firms were dragged into the investigation in what was seen as a crackdown on Turkey’s largest publisher and supplier of educational materials. Some 800 authors were victimized when the government cancelled book contracts after the seizure of Kaynak, and millions of textbooks including volumes on foreign language study were destroyed by authorities after the takeover.

Among those investigated in this case was Ekrem Dumanlı, former editor-in-chief of Zaman, Turkey’s largest national newspaper that was unlawfully seized by the government in March 2016 as part of a crackdown on the critical media. Dumanlı has been forced to live in exile along with 150 other journalists who had to flee to avoid wrongful imprisonment.

The Erdoğan government brands all its critics as terrorists, and there are 235 journalists currently locked up in Turkish jails on terrorism charges, making Turkey the world’s leading jailer of journalists. Over 30 percent of all Turkish diplomats, 60 percent of all senior police chiefs, half of all military generals and some 30 percent of all judges and prosecutors in Turkey were also declared terrorists overnight by the executive decisions of the Erdoğan government without any effective administrative investigation and certainly without any judicial proceedings.

In July 2017 German newspaper Die Zeit reported that Turkey had handed Germany a list of 68 companies and individuals suspected of links to terrorism due to alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement. It was also revealed that nearly 700 German firms including industry giants Daimler and BASF were being investigated for “financing terrorism” and lodged with Interpol by Turkey. After Germany reacted strongly against the witch-hunt and threatened economic sanctions, Turkey backed down and claimed that it was simply a miscommunication.

Nordic Monitor previously published a report disclosing how Turkish embassies and consular officials engaged in spying on government critics in 92 foreign countries as part of profiling and espionage activities that at times amounted to a systematic and deliberate campaign of refugee spying. A document found in papers released by the Ankara 4th High Criminal Court on Jan. 16, 2019 in case No. 2016/238 indicated that the Turkish Foreign Ministry had compiled a long list of foreign entities that were owned and/or operated by people who are seen as close to the movement.(First published on February 16, 2019)

Thousands in the New Zealand city of Christchurch have remembered the victims of deadly shootings at local mosques two weeks ago. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called for a global effort to end violent extremism.

At Friday’s memorial in a Christchurch park, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called on her country to “be the nation that discovers the cure” to the irrational hate and fear thought to be behind the March 15 mosque attacks. But she freely admitted that New Zealand itself was not immune to such “viruses.” She has won praise from around the world for the way she has dealt with the tragedy.

Thousands gathered for the memorial service at North Hagley Park. New Zealand has seen many outpourings of grief and condemnation after the attack, and its leaders have taken immediate action to tighten the country’s previously lax gun laws. Military-style semi-automatic and automatic firearms like those used in the March 15 attack are to be banned from April 11.

Among those performing at the Christchurch ceremony was Yusuf Islam, also known as Cat Stevens. Islam, himself a Muslim convert, performed his song “Peace Train.” “Our hearts go out to the families of those whose lives were snatched away in that evil carnage while they were worshipping at the mosque two weeks ago,” he said before his performance.

The shootings by the suspected Australian gunman also left many people injured. Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel called the atrocity “an attack on us all.” But, she said, in the end a deed aimed at dividing people had “united us” instead. Services were also held in several other New Zealand cities.

The service in Christchurch was also attended by numerous dignitaries, including Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Among those who spoke was Farid Ahmed, the husband of Husna Ahmed, one of those who died in the attack in the Al Noor mosque. He told the crowd he had forgiven the shooter because of his beliefs. “I don’t want to have a heart that is boiling like a volcano,” Ahmed said.

Authorities were monitoring the movements and phone calls of a man involved in Australia’s largest importation of methamphetamine for about six months before the shipment landed on Australian soil, WA’s Supreme Court has been told.

South Australian man Sean Michael Dolman, 38, was one of 10 people arrested after 1.2 tonnes of the drug were seized at the West Australian regional port city of Geraldton in December 2017.He has become the second person to plead guilty to having a part in the scheme.The Supreme Court heard on Wednesday that the drugs arrived on a boat called the Valkoista, before being transferred to the back of a van parked at the jetty, but police swooped in before the vehicle could drive away.

Dolman was not there at the time — he was sitting at a resort in the coastal Perth suburb of Hillarys — but police arrived to arrest him a short time later.He refused to be interviewed by police, but unbeknown to him the authorities had been tracking him since June 2017, when he transferred $200,000 to an account to help buy the Valkoista.In the months that followed the bank transfer, authorities continued to monitor his movements and those of the others alleged to have been involved in the importation.There was travel across the country by road and air, and business-class flights to Bangkok, where Dolman met two of his alleged accomplices before they all returned to Australia separately.

Details were also given on some of the participants meeting in Perth in September 2017 at the upmarket Rockpool restaurant in the Crown Towers complex, where one of them was staying.The court heard a search of that hotel room after the man left to return to Sydney uncovered a hand-drawn map on the back of a hotel check-out slip with arrows pointing to the east and west coasts of Australia.

The culmination of the plan came in mid-December 2017, when the Valkoista was about 300 nautical miles off the Geraldton coast and took possession of the methamphetamine from a mothership.The court was told authorities heard an Asian voice saying “money, money” before a token — a half-torn banknote — was shown by each party to confirm their identities.Around the same time, Dolman flew to Perth from his home in Adelaide, where he was observed with another man at the resort in Hillarys.

He used a satellite phone to send numerous text messages to the crew on board the Valkoista, asking them for details of where they were and what was going on, and telling them at one point, “they are saying they couldn’t find you” before later receiving a return message saying they were on their way back.

In the early hours of December 21, the vessel arrived in Geraldton and 59 bags of methamphetamine were transferred to a van.It was intercepted by police as it reversed off the jetty. The half-torn bank note that had been used to finalise the mid-ocean drug deal was found inside the vehicle.

Meanwhile, back on land Dolman received a call from a pay phone from one of his co-accused in Sydney, who asked him if he had heard from anyone.

Not long after, police attended the resort in Hillarys and arrested Dolman.

He has been in custody ever since.At the time, nine men were charged over the importation, but just this week a 10th man was arrested in Sydney and extradited to Western Australia.Dolman is the second person to plead guilty over the shipment.Last year Joshua Joseph Smith from New South Wales also admitted his part in the drug importation.

The media was allowed to report the facts of the prosecution case against Smith, but the court was then closed for both the defence submissions and the sentencing days later, which was suppressed.The same happened with Dolman, with the court being closed to both the public and the media after the statement of facts was read out.The maximum penalty both men were facing was life imprisonment.abc