Category: Opinion

Amberin Zaman– Al-monitor.com

A well-known saying of the Prophet Mohammed intones, “Allah has no mercy for him who has no mercy for his fellows.” It appears to be lost on Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Development Party government. The case of Ayse Ozdogan, an end-stage cancer patient, who is serving a nine-year sentence over her links to an anti-government religious sect, is among the starkest examples. Turkey’s Human Rights Association reckons there are over 1,600 seriously ill inmates in Turkey’s notoriously brutal and overpopulated prison system. About 600 are said to be in critical condition. The government won’t free them.

Ozdogan is suffering from a rare form of cancer called maxillary sinus. A portion of her face was removed in a complex operation on Jan. 2, 2020. A steady trickle of blood oozes from her nose and palate. She can barely speak, according to Ozdogan’s lawyer, Tarik Avsar. “Now Ayse Ozdogan is stuck in a cell even an animal wouldn’t live in, over nonsense charges,” Avsar told Al-Monitor.

“My sister wants to die in dignity. Her health is going from bad to worse. She must be freed,” Ozdogan’s elder sister, Emine Erdem, told Al-Monitor. A government run hospital in Antalya drew the same conclusion in a July 9 report seen by Al-Monitor. A panel of seven doctors unanimously agreed that the patient’s life was under threat and that her sentence should therefore be commuted to allow for treatment. But their verdict was overturned by the state-run Istanbul forensics institute, which opined that Ozdogan’s treatment could continue in jail.  Her appeals for mercy, aired via a heart-wrenching video, fell upon deaf ears. On Oct. 2 Ozdogan was carted off to the Antalya “T type” prison where her husband Ilker, is serving out his sentence on charges of membership of the “Fethullah Terrorist Organization.”

Ozdogan and her husband were both followers of Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based cleric who is accused of staging the failed attempt in July 2016 to bloodily overthrow Erdogan. She supervised a girls’ dormitory operated by the Gulenists. He was a bureaucrat in the national education ministry. Both were fired after the botched putsch and eventually prosecuted, like the tens of thousands of fellow Gulenists who are behind bars.

Rights groups have documented systematic torture of Gulenist detainees, including at purpose-built black sites. But there is little public sympathy for them. Gulen used to be a close ally of Erdogan until they fell out over who should have more power — and spoils.

Gulen used the alliance to wage a vendetta against their common enemies in the army, through a series of trials that were presided over by his disciples in the judiciary. Hundreds of officers were convicted on sham evidence. “Even today, the Gulenists are resorting to deception, and the bigwigs in the organization who fled to safety abroad have yet to show any contrition for what they did, causing further harm to the foot soldiers who got left behind in Turkey,” said Ayse Cavdar, a Turkish anthropologist who closely follows religious movements in her native country.

However, Ozdogan’s tragedy has stirred hearts across the ideological spectrum.  A lawmaker from the stridently pro-secular main opposition Republican People’s Party, Gulizar Bicer Karaca, sought to visit her in prison but was denied access by prison administrators citing COVID-19 risks. Basak Demirtas, the wife of the imprisoned Kurdish leader, Selahattin Demirtas, aired support for Ozdogan via Twitter while the left-leaning satirical weekly Leman, put her on its cover page.

“You have a chronic problem of very, very sick people for whom the prognosis is very poor. They can’t look after themselves in prison. There are humanitarian grounds for postponing the execution of their sentences,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey director for Human Rights Watch.

Sinclair-Webb recalled the plight of Mehmet Emin Ozkan, an 83-year-old Kurd, who was sentenced to life on charges of murdering a Turkish general in a case that was marred by flawed if not outright fabricated evidence. He’s spent the past 26 years in prison for a crime that was committed by Turkey’s shadowy counter-insurgency forces, according to a pair of secret witnesses who gave evidence in a separate trial. Ozkan’s demands for a retrial were granted. But he was not set free.

Ozkan has had five heart attacks over the course of his incarceration and suffers from numerous health conditions. He is unable to eat, drink or dress himself unaided. Images of Ozkan lying handcuffed to a hospital bed earlier this year caused uproar. Turkey’s Justice minister, Abdulhamit Gul, has ignored repeated calls for Ozkan’s release. “It’s obvious he is not going to abscond or flee. This is an area where the authorities are at their most vindictive,” Sinclair-Webb observed.

Avsar, Ozdogan’s lawyer, will appeal her sentence at the constitutional court on the grounds that her right to life has been violated. Should the court rule against Ozdogan, in a replay of other high-profile political cases, Avsar says he will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The Strasbourg-based body ruled in 2013 that Turkey had violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting inhuman and degrading treatment of individuals for remanding Gulay Cetin, an auditor diagnosed with metastatic gastric cancer in custody. Cetin, who was accused of murdering her partner, died in the prison ward at Antalya hospital in 2011.

Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a prominent human rights defender and lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, who has taken up Ozdogan’s cause noted that sick prisoners are released only when they have “reached the point of no return.”

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/10/jailing-terminally-ill-gulen-disciple-stirs-hearts-across-turkeys-ideological#ixzz79GpWMwt8

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairwoman Gülizar Biçer Karaca wasn’t allowed to visit critically ill Ayşe Özdoğan, 34, who was sent to prison last week on a terrorism conviction despite her end-stage cancer, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported on Monday, citing the Kronos news website.

According to Özdoğan’s sister, Emine Erdem, Karaca wanted to visit Özdoğan in Denizli Prison on Friday, but the prison administration denied her request.

Özdoğan, a former teacher, was handed down a nine-year, four-month prison sentence for alleged links to the Gülen movement. An appeals court on June 11 upheld her sentence despite severe health problems and a hospital report saying she was not fit to stay in prison.

Özdoğan and her husband were detained on April 8, 2019 for alleged links to the movement, but she was released due to her son’s heart condition. Her husband was sent to prison in southern Antalya province.

Özdoğan developed cancer seven months later and underwent an operation on November 12, 2019. However, she was arrested shortly thereafter, convicted and sentenced to nine years, six months in prison.

Özdoğan’s arrest sparked outrage, and thanks to an online campaign started by Human rights defender and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, she was released pending appeal on December 27, 2019.

It was already too late for her second surgery, however, as the cancer had spread. Özdoğan’s teeth, palate, zygomatic bone and lymph nodes were removed in an emergency operation. Özdoğan lost her ability to see and hear after the operation due to the trauma her facial bones suffered.

Özdoğan previously said she could no longer eat solid foods and suffered from a chronic infection in her sinuses, where a tumor was removed. She added that she could not chew or swallow because of the cancer.

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 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.

Cevheri Güven– turkishminute

A hit list of 21 people including journalists, artists and politicians has been preoccupying intelligence agencies in Europe. Most people on the list previously had to flee Turkey due to political persecution and settle in Europe. What they share in common is their opposition to Turkish President Erdoğan, his regime and his partners.

The list was published on an Instagram account with the username of Jitem Kurt, which vowed that the 21 targeted individuals would be killed as soon as possible. Journalist Erk Acarer, who was on it, suffered a physical attack outside his house in Berlin on July 7. The assailants were shouting at Acarer to stop writing.

The German police began paying visits to the people listed in mid-July. The meetings were aimed at informing the potential targets about the list and offering security advice.

Germany: the new base of Turkish media

Hundreds of journalists fled Turkey during a two-year-long state of emergency declared at the request of Erdoğan’s government following an attempted military coup. They would spend the first years either in refugee camps or trying to start a new life amid financial difficulties. What brought them back into Erdoğan’s crosshairs was the new and influential platforms of journalism that they built in overseas.

After Erdoğan’s full-scale takeover of the mainstream media through the detention of dozens of journalists and the shutdown of more than 160 media outlets, these refugee journalists carried the independent Turkish media to Europe.

With their YouTube videos that are viewed millions of times and their social media accounts with a following of hundreds of thousands, they bring home to the Turkish public anything that is censored or ignored in Turkey’s mainstream media. One of these issues was the revelations of fugitive mob boss Sedat Peker.

Peker, who fled Turkey following a rift with former cabinet minister and Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak, used to be very close to Erdoğan. This powerful and forbidding mafia leader was instrumental between 2015 and 2020 in an intimidation and harassment campaign that targeted Erdoğan’s critics.

After his falling out with Erdoğan, Peker released a series of videos from his new base in Dubai in which he described in detail the criminal acts perpetrated in the past by Erdoğan’s associates, in some of which he was personally implicated. Each of his videos drew a viewership of some 40 million.

The foreign-based journalists pursued the clues in Peker’s narratives and uncovered a number of scandals involving people close to Erdoğan, including Syria-related arms trafficking and corruption in the defense industry. Among those implicated were Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and Cihan Ekşioğlu, a businessperson known for being a regular participant in defense industry tenders.

As expected, the government-controlled media ignored Peker’s revelations, while the beleaguered government-critical media showed a certain interest at first, only to ultimately retreat into self-censorship due to pressure.

The public turned to foreign-based journalists for the details of Peker’s accounts. While the Turkish media hit rock bottom in circulation and ratings, journalists broadcasting from abroad broke records in viewership.

The International Journalists Association (IJA) was founded in Frankfurt by German-based Turkish journalists who fled their country after 2016. Bringing together journalists from a variety of countries, the association supports independent journalism and promotes online platforms. Bold Medya and Turkish Minute are two of them.

Platforms such as Artı Gerçek, Ahval and Özgürüz were also established by such journalists.

One of the IJA’s significant projects was “ORKOZ,” a documentary published on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. Despite the Presidential Communications Directorate’s several attempts at censorship and an access ban, “ORKOZ” was watched more than a million times in two weeks. Bedrettin Uğur, the producer and director of the documentary who lives in Germany, says that it’s not easy to return to one’s profession after five years and that he felt he was supported by the IJA during everything he went through. According to Uğur the Turkish government’s narrative on the abortive putsch has not gained recognition and the documentary’s ratings are proof of the Turkish public’s search for the truth.

Threats proportionate to the impact

I was among the 21 journalists on the hit list, which I was aware of before the police rang my doorbell. Yet, prior to the visit I encountered an even more interesting warning. It was a travel warning from the intelligence agency of one of Europe’s smaller yet significant countries which was telling me that their network was not as powerful as Germany’s and that they would have difficulties in ensuring my safety if I traveled there. In other words, they were politely advising me not to come.

It was indicative of a certain preparation on the part of European intelligence agencies about plans to assassinate Turkish journalists.

I had to leave Turkey in September 2016 due to arrest warrants, the shutdown of the Nokta magazine where I was a chief editor and a prison sentence of 22 and a half years that an İstanbul court had handed down to me.

I am one of the luckier journalists who were able to remain in the profession in the following years. Sometimes I wrote news reports from refugee camps, and at other times, when I couldn’t find a medium on which to publish my work, I posted on Twitter. I don’t remember the number of threats I received in this period, but I believe that we are faced with a new situation here.

My YouTube channel is one of the most influential, and every one of my videos is viewed hundreds of thousands of times. The threats against journalists like myself are increasing in line with our impact. Erdoğan and his partners have managed to completely stamp out journalism in Turkey. And now, they are seeking to do the same to those in Europe.

Lists a roadmap for fanatics

Europe is home to millions of Turks whom the Erdoğan government has for years been expending efforts and resources to indoctrinate. Germany banned the group Osmanen Germania and France the Grey Wolves. Yet, we have seen that these moves were not enough to stop the fanatics, as in the case of my colleague Erk Acarer, who was attacked in Berlin on July 7. The lists are published openly, in an effort to guide the fanatics. After the publication of the hit list, pro-Erdoğan journalists launched a campaign to point to us as targets. One of them, Hadi Özışık, uploaded a video on YouTube where he shared the pictures of all 21, calling us names like traitors and terrorists. Afterwards, a Twitter account shared the names of the countries where each listed journalist lived.

Similar things happened in the days leading up to the assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and of the priest Andrea Santoro. Those two figures, along with a number of others from minorities, were first the target of publications containing hate speech. Afterwards, their addresses were released on the Internet. It was not hard to find two bigoted hitmen to take care of the rest.

A Washington-based lobbyist friend of mine who knows all about this and who is familiar with Turkey’s past has been insisting that I move to the United States as Europe can no longer be considered safe.

Should I prepare to look back at Europe the same way I looked back at my country one last time when I was on that migrant boat carrying me to Greek shores on September 1, 2016?

FELIX KAIZA-POLİTURCO

At long last, the ‘quadratic’ sort of political equation for the highly intriguing July 15 2016 failed Turkish attempted coup has been solved.  Five years down the time lane, it is revealed to be a planned-to-fail coup.

Truth, in whatever dimension, is non-negotiable.  About five centuries BC (Before Christ), Greek Philosopher Socrates said: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” During the fateful trial on the way to being crucified, the Christ asked Pontius Pilate: “What is the truth”. On a light note, there is a joke of a child peeping through a bathroom door key hole and running fast to his mother to break the news: “Now I know. I’m like dad.

What is the truth about the orchestrated Turkey coup that has come with untold bad experiences for the people and the rest of the world? Who is its author?

I have always argued that because it is difficult to hide the truth about anything, the world would one day know what exactly happened until there is now what we call the July 15 2016 failed attempted coup in Turkey. The coup had many and divergent versions.

I felt I would rather reason with Dr. Omer Atilla Ergi on what he calls “Turkey’s July 15 conundrum” in the latest Truth Magazine publication dedicated to the fifth anniversary of the coup.

Scenario One: From the perspective of history, the about one –century-old Turkey Republic has been through a series of military coups.

Scenario Two: Here we have the second strongest NATO member in military terms undergoing a coup conducted by 18 to 21-year-old cadet and private soldiers minus the involvement of any high ranking officer. The army strength is about one million with generals.

Scenario Three: The military team is being sent to capture the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hours after his departure. Strangely, the mission contacts a taxi driver on the direction of the hotel in which the president was staying. A mission without destination?

Scenario Four: The president under threat takes an official flight when the Air Force is the one allegedly coordinating a coup.  What a security discrepancy? Or was he in the know of what was taking place?

Scenario Five:  Ruling Justice and Development (AKP) councils on key military locations block entrances of several army compounds with heavy machinery.

Scenario Six: Hundreds of civilians from Sincan commuting on unofficial train trip being taken to Ankara to fight against plotters.

Scenario Seven: Ankara police headquarters distributing semi-automatic arms to selected civilians.

Scenario Eight: Despite the governor’s confirmation of the operation, police headquarters after the coup ‘report’ 107,000 arms missing from the inventory.

Scenario Nine: Religious Affairs President Mehmet Gormez gives instructions to mosque Imams in key cities to invite civilians to the streets from the minarets with a call of sala.

Scenario Ten:  Turkey Intelligence (MiT) Director Hakan Fidan had soup with Mehmet Gormez one hour to the ‘coup’.

Scenario Eleven: Key figures in the event refused to testify in a court of law. They were right. How could they take oath for giving false testimony?

Scenario Twelve: The two generals who were assassinated on the night of the coup were both known Kemalists.

Scenario Thirteen: Dr. Erig concludes: There was no coup attempt but a carefully planned intelligence operation. It was a planned-to-fail coup. So why bring in the Gulen movement?

To get a sort of from-the-horse’s-mouth analysis, former intelligence (MiT) head, Prof. Mahirk Aynak said: “In order to understand who the perpetrators are it is necessary to ask the question: Who benefits the most from the event?”  That is, between Erdogan, AKP and allies on one side and Gulen and Hizmet members on the other.

Institutions established by the Gulen movement were usurped and given to Erdogan relatives. This involved 15 universities, 49 hospitals 164 foundations 300 schools and educational institutions. This translated into 35,000 teachers losing jobs immediately. A total of 31,500 police officers, 7,000 doctors, 6,000 academicians, 1,524 judges and prosecutors,600 lawyers mostly women were purged.

The wrath also involved 780 babies, 11,000 women handed 4-8 years’ jail terms.  More than US$20 billion assets and more than 1,000 private businesses were confiscated.

All in all, 622,646 people have been subjected to investigations, 301932 detained, 96000 others jailed due to links with the Gulen movement and the failed coup.  Currently 25,467 people are in prisons while more than 130,00 civil servants have been sacked.

Further proof of the coup ownership is traceable in parliament. In July 2017 parliamentary inquiry committee into the matter handed a report to the speaker, whose office now claims to have never received it.  However, very reliable information says that Turkish authorities have not made it public following legal advice warning that it could help members of Gulen movement compensation claims

The then vice-chair Selkuk  Ozdag , former lawmaker and ex-member of ruling party now vice-chair of opposition Future Party(GP) warned:  “Allegations, facts and events would cause you a lot of trouble in the future…would put Turkey in a tight  spot in the international arena  and could lead to the government having to pay a lot of compensation…”

In a 2019 response to a written question, deputy parliament speaker said the speaker’s office had not received the report and that an earlier one prepared during the 26th legislative session was not published as it was not finalized within the session.  What a lame excuse, if not a lie!

Further proof lies in the fact that even events that never happened on the day of the failed coup were recorded in the report of the public prosecutor.

As of now, lawyers have filed criminal complaints against seven people, including President Erdogan and his son-in- law, Berat Albayrak, over a mob boss claims about distribution of AK-47arms to civilians on the night of the coup.

Two days to the anniversary, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who was the country’s Chief of General Staff revealed that a total of 23,364 personnel have been expelled from the military since the coup attempt. He said this when addressing the “Fifth International July 15th Symposium held by the July 15 Foundation at Marmara University.

At the root of the Erdogan-Gulen dividing line is not the coup that was. It is the December 17-25 2013 corruption investigations implicating the then Prime Minister (now President) Erdogan, his family members and inner circle.

Gulen has categorically stated: “If I am found guilty I will voluntarily return to turkey for a legal trial.” But Erdogan, with reasons we now know, is unwilling to allow the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry. To him an unexamined life is worth living. He is ready to create hell on earth for dissidents at home and abroad. International laws and protocols no longer matter so much.

The question is for how long shall the people of Turkey live under Erdogan repressions? And is it fair for the rest of the world to ignore or keep quiet about it?

By ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ

There are many unanswered questions about the July 15 coup attempt, which lead many independent obsorvers to conclude it was not a real coup but a staged one like Hitler’s Reichstag fire that gave him the excuse to wipe out opposition and create one man rule.

Questions like how Chief of Intelligence and Chief of Staff preserved their positions, even promoted if they were unable to inform Erdogan, who claimed to have learned about the coup attempt from his sister’s husband?

Or Erdogan replied with 4 different versions about the first time he learned the coup was on that evening? Or how the general who was praised for his role in preventing the coup attempt was later portrayed as the leader of the coup?

Or what was the logic behind starting a coup at prime time on a summer evening when people are chilling all around instead of an early morning when people were deep in their sleep ( universal and Turkish coup time).

Or what was the rationale behind closing one way traffic at one of Istanbul, bridges while leaving all media intact?

Or what was the sense of bombing the parliament building if coup plotters reported the aim was to restore democracy and especially doing that after it bacame clear that attempt failed? Or why and how can a political leader describe a coup attempt targeting himself as a gift from God?

Or why Erdogan’s Intelligence Chief and Chief of Staff rejected to respond to questions from members of parliamentary commitee investigating the attempt. Or why Erdogan abruptly stop this commission from completing its investigation?

Or why did the incomplete report of that commission disappeared?

Or why whoever questioned the official version of the coup attempt were silenced like jailing opposition leader Selahattin Demirtaş who described July 15 as the conspiracy of century by Erdogan and critical journalist Ahmet Şık who found himself in jail after questioning the official July 15 narrative?

Though each of these is a very critical question mark, they are still less mind boggling compared to the question at the headline of this piece: How could a failed coup destroy a democracy?

If July 15 was a real coup attempt and failed, why did Turkey lose its democracy instead of celebrating and strenghtening it?

Turkey was never a full fledged democracy and it has always been hard for anyone not considered loyal to the regime under the ultra secularist and nationalist ideology of previous establishments, but destruction of democratic rights were not crashed even after previous ‘successful’ coup attempts to the extent of the July 15 failed coup.

I was an editor at Aksiyon weekly during the February 28 post-modern coup, which forced the elected government to resign as a result of immense pressure and threats from the Turkish military.

Generals who were behind that attempt had categorized our media group in the enemy camp, but their suppression had been limited to condemnations, some minor court cases and revoking our accreditations to cover any military event including press briefings of Chief of Staff and military maneuvers.

In total contrast to the July 15 failed coup, which shutdown my newspaper, news agency, our news magazine, tv and radio stations altogether. Just 8 days after the failed coup, the Erdogan government, not generals, raided the homes of reporters, editors, designers, columnists including mine as the last editor-in-chief of the banned Zaman daily and arrested them with the claim that they supported the coup attempt by their publications, which were taken over by the same government 5 months before July 15.

I left Turkey after the Erdogan goverment occupied and silenced my newspaper, so their attempt to arrest me fortunately failed, but most of my colleagues who were arrested in that raid have been in prison for the last 5 years.

Even Erdogan’s kangaroo courts were not able to establish any evidence linking these journalists to the failed coup but that did not prevent giving long prison sentences, even life time punishments, for some articles or tweets of journalists.

The media group that I was part of had two big sins. First, it was accused for being affliated to the Hizmet or Gülen Movement, which the Erdogan regime blamed for the failed coup.

Its second sin was to be an outspoken critical voice exposing the corruption of government and opposing its Islamofascist political ideology. In contrast to widespread perception, suppression of the media under the Erdogan regime did not start after or in reaction to July 15 and it was not limited to Hizmet affliated press.

On July 21, six days after the failed coup, instead of celebrating the relief, Erdogan’s ruling AKP approved a bill declaring a state of emergency allowing the government to rule by decree. On the same day, Erdogan suspended the European Convention on Human Rights. On July 27, the government published a decree to shut down over 200 critical media outlets, which had nothing to do with the coup or the Gülen group.

As a result of these policies, Turkey has become the worst jailer of journalists in the world, even worse than China and Iran. The Freedom House put Turkey into the category of ‘not free’ countries. According to the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom index last report, Turkey ranks 154 in 180 countries after Venezuela, Honduras and Bangladesh.

Silencing critical media was a vital component but was not the limit. With the excuse of July 15, Erdogan purged the judiciary by firing or jailing more than 5.000 judges and prosecutors including two members of the Supreme Court and several judges of the highest level courts. The new regime also used July 15 to change Turkey’s political system from parliamentary to presidential, which eroded the controlling power of the legislative over the executive branch.

As a result, Erdogan established his one man rule by eliminating the most crucial three check and balance mechanisms of a normal democracy: parliament, media and judiciary. Currently, Turkey has a political environment where 95% of media, judiciary, parliament and executive is controlled by one man. This may be the answer to the questions why and how a failed coup destroys a democracy and why a political leader names a coup targeting himself as a gift from God. The TRuth

Being of Indian Muslim origin, I am very much familiar with Turkish heritage, culture and
language. Many modern Turks are not aware of the fact that the Indian Muslim rule that spanned for almost
1,000 years, was largely led by Turkish rulers. This rule ended with almost 350 years of Mughal rulers who were also of Turkish descent.
My mother tongue, Urdu, is froma Turkish word meaning army. Urdudeveloped with the confluence of
Muslim Arabs, Turks, Persians and native Indians, and is a mixed language consisting of almost a quarter each of
Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Sanskrit.
During the Muslim rule, the main court and administrative language in India was Persian. The Ulama scholars
used Arabic, but the rulers spoke, read, and wrote in Turkish within their royal surroundings.
Indian Muslims, although notpart of the Ottoman Empire, respected Ottoman rule and the seat of the
Khalifah, and supported the Ottomans during WWI against the British. After the formal abolition of the Caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during the early  1920’s, Indian Muslims founded the Khilafah movement. This was to restore the Caliphate and was also supported by Mahatma Gandhi.

Although not happy with the radical Westernization of modern Turkey, Indian Muslims still admired Turkish people and their culture. Turkey was the only Muslim country that was never colonized and maintained its pride and self-respect. This contrasted with other national states within the Arab world.
I arrived in Australia almost half a century ago, towards the end of 1971. As a young man, along with my father,
I had to engage with the two main Muslim communities in Sydney at the time. These two communities were the
Lebanese and Turkish ethnic groups. I dealt with these two groups to organize Muslims, especially in and around
Sydney.
I found the young Turks to be very nationalistic, to some extent anti-Arab and largely conservative. Within this
group, was a small cohort of elites who were highly Westernized. During the seventies, we had a few sessions with Milli Gorus members. We somehow identified with them as they were ideologically inspired by Said Nursi.
We supported the Turkish community in the establishment of Erskineville Mosque, where the first formal five
daily prayers and Jumah prayers were established.

Later, we also helped the Turkish community with the establishment of our local Bonnyrigg Mosque, and we used this mosque for our own Islamic activities.
It was only after 2000 that my imagination caught up with the Turkish community again. I saw a new breed of
young Turks, either born or raised here.
They were at the forefront of establishing face to face and eye to eye contact
with the mainstream community and engaged the diverse Australian community in their programs and innovative institutions.
This was a new trend as opposed to other sections of the Muslim community that were largely insular – engaged
within their own ethnic community and their suburban mosques.
I was curious as to where this new energy among the young Turks in Australia came from. I later found out
that they were inspired by Fethullah Gülen’s global educational movement. They used his extraordinarily success

ful methodology of engagement with mainstream civil society irrespective of religious, ethnic, and ideological
affiliations. I attended a highly productive study tour of Turkey together with my wife,daughter, and niece, which was organized by this group of Turks. We visited several cities including Gallipoli, where we attended the Anzac Day dawn service in April 2012 and engaged with diverse groups of Turkish civic society
movement members. This included academics, religious scholars, health professionals, educationists, and journalists, and this completely transformed my view of Turkey.
I found that post- Kemalist Turkey had shed its indifference with Islam and  there had been a rapid Islamization of the Turkish society during the last two decades. I had the impression that the Kemalist forces were on the run and Turkey was again ready to take on the leadership of the Muslim world. This entailed a return to Islamic roots and establishing a modern, Islamic civil society.
However, my dreams and hopes were soon dashed when I realized that the Islamophilic forces that were
transforming Turkey from Erbakan to Erdogan had major issues. The Islamic grassroot movements inspired by Said Nursi and with Milli Gorus and the Gülen movement were having splits
from within.

Then came the July 15, 2016 coup attempt against the Turkish government in general and against President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This was carried out by a faction of the Turkish Armed Forces. These forces had a track record of conducting coups from time to time against elected governments in Turkey.
The coup attempt failed miserably with minimum loss of life and damage to Turkish institutions. However,
it brought disastrous impacts on the Turkish society afterwards, leading to gross human rights violations on a
mega scale.
The government blamed the Gülen movement, which was earlier designated as a terrorist organization by the
Republic of Turkey. Communist style purges, unexpected in a democratic Muslim country,
resulted in immediate mass arrests following the coup. This accompanied  nearly 100,000 arrested, including 4,463 judges and over 300 journalists. So far more than 500,000 people have been investigated and over
150,000 dismissed from their jobs based on reports of their connections to Gülen. Over 3,000 educational institutions (primary, secondary and tertiary institutions) that had any association with the Gülen movement, were shut down while over 6,000 academics lost
their jobs.
All educational, health, aid, media organizations and institutions were either closed or taken over by the
government. This was especially true of any group with formal or informal association with the Gülen movement.
This also included those in many other countries under pressure by the Turkish government.

Just recently, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) abducted a Turkish-Kyrgyz educator Orhan
İnandı, who went missing in Bishkek on the night of May 31, due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) had previously called on Kyrgyz authorities to investigate the disappearance of
İnandı, who is a dual Turkish-Kyrgyz citizen. According to HRW, allowing İnandı’s rendition to Turkey would violate Kyrgyzstan’s obligations under  the “Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment”.

While on a visit to various cities in USA in 2018 and in Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa in 2019, I had firsthand experience of high numbers of victims of oppression by the Erdogan government. This group was made up
of men and women, extraordinarily successful businessmen, academics, educationists, and journalists. All had
been the victim of these purges and fled Turkey to avoid persecution and are now living as refugees and asylum
seekers outside their home country.
As a non-Turk, it makes me feel incredibly sad, where just a decade ago I had a vision of Turkey providing a viable leadership for uniting the fractured Muslim world. Now these hopes have not materialized because of internal division, corruption, and the gross violation of human rights.TRuth

Alin Ozinian-turkishminute

A gunman stormed a local office of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the western city of Izmir and shot dead a 38-year-old woman last week. The victim, Deniz Poyraz, was a party official covering a janitorial shift for her mother at the office.

HDP co-leader Mithat Sancar said a planned meeting of 40 officials at the office had been called off for unrelated reasons moments before the attack. “The plan here was clear, what they wanted was a massacre,” Sancar told reporters.

The HDP, the second-largest opposition party in the Turkish parliament, has faced a widespread government crackdown, with party members accused of supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group.

It is important to add that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its election partner, the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and their party members have frequently labeled HDP leaders, members and supporters as terrorists.

Hundreds of HDP politicians, including the party’s former co-chairs, are behind bars on terrorism charges, while most of the 65 HDP mayors elected in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast in 2019 have been replaced by government-appointed trustees.

Ali Duran Topuz, editor-in-chief of the Duvar daily, thinks what is happening in Turkey right now is a result of the hate speech directed at the HDP and its members.

According to Topuz the hateful rhetoric employed by Turkey’s ruling AKP and its partner the MHP targeting the HDP laid the groundwork for the fatal attack.

“Some people in Turkey see the PKK and HDP as one and the same, the main reason for which is this discourse constantly expressed at all levels of government. Ultranationalist MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli sings the same song day and night. This is why HDP buildings are frequently the subjects of physical attacks,” said Topuz, in an interview with Turkish Minute.

HDP Istanbul MP Hüda Kaya thinks the government is the main party responsible for the murder of Poyraz.

“The attack is an effort to cover up the AKP’s own disgrace and criminal relations with gangs and the mafia. If the opposition really wants to oppose, they must expose the state’s dirty relations. If they want to save the country from the AKP, all opposition parties, regardless of ideology, should stand with the HDP to learn the real facts behind Deniz’s murder,” Kaya told Turkish Minute.

Topuz thinks HDP offices are under constant surveillance and that such an attack is not an easy job, so some people necessarily think this attack and murder are too complicated to solve.

“In any attack against the HDP, the state routine includes stories about ‘the reaction to terrorism’ and ‘the individual has no relations with any group,’ but these approaches are never adequate for the reality. Those attacks were always carefully planned,” said Topuz.

The ruling AKP’s official spokesman called the incident a provocation aimed at disrupting Turkey’s peace and security. “We condemn the attack and the murder that occurred at the HDP Izmir office,” AKP spokesman Ömer Çelik said.

While the opposition parties and AKP condemned the attack, MHP leader Bahçeli claimed the murdered woman was responsible for recruiting militants for the PKK. “I’ll tell you who Poyraz was. She was a militia collaborator,” Bahçeli told MHP members during a parliamentary group meeting on June 22.

The ultranationalist politician claimed that Poyraz was in the circle that sent those who wanted to join the PKK to militant camps. “A militia collaborator is a terrorist that aids the organization’s treacherous attacks,” Bahçeli said and also claimed that the murder was carried out to “make the HDP seem innocent” and blame the Turkish state.

According to Kaya, HDP members do not know where and when the attacks will come, but they always assume they will know who the perpetrators are.

“What happened was not a surprise. Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has transformed the Interior Ministry into a center of organized crime. Haters, including him, are responsible for Deniz’s murder. Haters are the main shooters, the main perpetrators. It’s just that clear,” she said.

“Don’t pay any attention to the fact that the police arrested the alleged shooter. They are shamelessly protecting him, and they will continue to do so. Tomorrow they will say the assailant was drunk, mad, insane or sick. Those who are backing the perpetrator today are the ones who encouraged him yesterday.”

Turkish media reported that the suspect claimed to have been sent to Syria by the Turkish state, sharing pictures on social media of him posing with Kalashnikov rifles and Turkish flags. Meanwhile, the Izmir Governor’s Office said the alleged assailant had “resigned as a health worker” in Turkey.

Kaya is warning the opposition parties that what happened to the HDP today could happen to other opposition parties in the future.

“Something is very clear; the attack was aimed at suppressing all opposition parties through the HDP. If we all don’t say ‘stop’ to these attacks, they will continue,” said Kaya.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court on June 21, soon after the attack, accepted an indictment filed by a senior prosecutor seeking the closure of the HDP for alleged ties to the PKK.

Immediately after the decision was announced, HDP Co-Chairs Sancar and Pervin Buldan held a press conference and said, “The indictment filed against the HDP does not have any ‘legal value’.”

Sancar reminded that the top court had the opportunity to reject the indictment, adding: “There were sufficient legal and ethical reasons to do so. The closure case was filed following a months-long political campaign.”

“The government, and especially its partner the MHP, and pro-government groups as a whole have targeted the HDP for months. They made statements on various platforms, portraying the HDP as an enemy; they issued threats, and ultimately a senior prosecutor asked the Constitutional Court to close down the HDP,” said Sancar.

According to Topuz, after the attack and murder at the HDP office in Izmir, the government immediately began signaling its strategy to absolve itself of any responsibility. Topuz thinks it’s obvious that they want people to think this was not an organized political act but a hate crime.

“The attacker said he has no connection to anyone. He entered the building because he hated the PKK and fired at random. His ‘emotional motivation’ was made public by the pro-government media,” Topuz said, and added: “Pay attention – he did not say he hates the HDP or the Kurds, he said he hates the PKK. Before the prosecution begins, even before the investigation, these are clear indications of how the murder is going to be approached from a legal perspective.”

Topuz thinks official statements and developments such as the leaking of the suspect’s statements during police interrogation remind him of a wave of violence that occurred after the June 7, 2015 elections, when the AKP lost its majority, including the Suruç and Ankara train station attacks, when dozens of people lost their lives.

“Political leaders and opinion leaders are coming to a parting of the ways. They can choose to raise a collective voice against the government and its dirty policies and demand democracy and transparency, or accept it and go along with the hostile, cheap and bloody acts of the ‘murderous front.’ There’s no other way…”

As a journalist who was forced into exile in March 2016 after the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan brutally took over our newspaper, Today’s Zaman, I still have nightmares about Turkey, both literally and figuratively. After all this time, I dream that I’m stuck in my hometown of Istanbul and trying to escape. This trauma was one of the reasons I took a break from active reporting for Turkish Minute and pursued a different path to normalize my life.

Due to the intense climate of fear in the wake of a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016, only a handful of journalists in exile created content, without their bylines, for Turkish Minute. Despite incredibly limited resources, this modest website has filled a huge void in the absence of free and independent stories from Turkey, particularly in English. I am thrilled to be back for weekly contributions on underreported issues from and about Turkey.

One of the most neglected stories and now a pattern for Turkey is abductions in and outside the country targeting Turkish citizens. Needless to say, Turkey has never been a true adherent of the rule of law although it was always an aspiring European Union member. However, in the first years of Erdoğan’s government, which came to power in late 2002, there was a significant decrease in the number of unlawful abductions, according to a September 2020 report by Turkey Tribunal. The report states that “During the 1980s and 1990s Turkey was confronted with many state-sponsored abductions and disappearances. Human rights organizations estimate that up to 3,500 people forcibly disappeared, with around 450 cases being confirmed. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances registered 214 cases during those years. … Consequently, between 2002 and 2015, only 1 case of enforced disappearance was transmitted to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.”

These days, Erdoğan’s one-man regime is “proud” to announce the abduction of political opponents under the label of terrorist captures. Several officials have repeatedly claimed that Turkey was involved in more than 100 international abductions. In 25 cases it is beyond reasonable doubt that an abduction was organized by the Turkish state. The numbers keep rising by the day. All the abductees are branded as “terrorists” with links to the Gülen or Kurdish movements.

According to the Turkey Tribunal report, “İsmail Hakki Pekin, former head of the Turkish Armed Forces Intelligence Department, confirmed that, unless the followers of the Gülen movement are ‘returned to Turkey by force, they must be exterminated wherever they are, just like ASALA or the MOSSAD did with the former Nazis.’ The presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın publicly stated that operations abroad against the Gülen movement were being carried out ‘under clear instructions’ from President Erdogan.”

What has turned Turkey, once a poster child of democracy in the Muslim world, into a “rogue” state that completely disregards international law? The pretext seems to be, in almost every case, the failed coup of July 15, 2016. Yet, those who follow Turkey closely know that the real reason behind such a swift transformation is Erdoğan’s fear of accountability. Notoriously corrupt, Erdoğan, his family and his cronies must stay in power as long as possible to avoid prosecution. Since the unfolding of massive corruption investigations in December 2013, Erdoğan has had to be involved in worse crimes in order to cover the original one. As we’ve heard in the confessions of Sedat Peker, a Turkish crime boss in exile, on YouTube in the last couple of months, the government itself has turned into a mafia never before seen in Turkey, even in the dark decade of the 1990s. According to Peker’s revelations, the Erdoğan government is now even in charge of drug trafficking in Turkey with ties to countries as far away as Venezuela.

While I’m writing this piece, a group of Kyrgyz nationals are protesting in front of the Turkish Embassy in Bishkek due to the most recent abduction attempt by Turkey. An educator named Orhan İnandı, a dual Turkish-Kyrgyz citizen, disappeared in late May. Reports state that Kyrgyz officials warned him against a possible abduction by his native country of Turkey. His wife claims İnandı is being held at the embassy and pressured to give up his Kyrgyz citizenship to make it easier to return him to Turkey.

Unfortunately, unlike the reaction to the forced diversion of a plane by the Belarus dictatorship to bring a critical journalist back to the country, there has not been much uproar about this case around the world. Although Turkey chooses mostly anti-democratic and corrupt countries for such abductions, Erdoğan’s long arm is trying to reach even Europe. In 2018 two Turkish diplomats planned to abduct a Turkish-Swiss businessman who was allegedly active in the Gülen movement. The Swiss secret service discovered the plot and prevented it, as reported by the media. I will not even go into the details of revoking the passports of critics of the regime as another way to have them deported to Turkey. Since 2016 over a quarter million passports have been arbitrarily canceled by the Turkish government.

The abductions are not limited to overseas. A worse form of kidnapping, enforced disappearances, has gained pace in Turkey, especially since 2016. The victims are predominantly civil servants linked to the Gülen movement who have been purged from their jobs. According to Solidarity with OTHERS, 30 people have been kidnapped inside Turkey since 2016. German-based news site CORREKTIV.ORG issued a detailed report in 2018 on the torture of these victims for months in secret detention centers run by Turkish intelligence.

This is such a high-risk subject for journalists inside the country that enforced disappearances and the eventual torture of these people do not even make the news. Former opposition deputy and doctor who was purged from his job Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu was among the very few who dared bring up the issue and has waged a war against rights violations, but he is now serving a prison sentence on conviction of disseminating “terrorist” propaganda in a 2016 tweet.

In the absence of a free media and a concerned international community, these innocent abductees and victims are left on their own. Such helplessness is one of the reasons I feel obliged to write. This is the least I can do in the midst of the horrendous suffering in my once-home country.

Sevgi Akarçeşme is the former editor-in-chief of Today’s Zaman and Turkish Minute.

 He gave his last breath without seeing his father.

He departed from a world transformed into a dungeon by tyrants, with an innocent look on his face.

Selman Çalışkan was only seven when his body succumbed to the tumour in his brain.

His tiny heart could not tolerate the suffering inflicted on his parents and himself.

It stops twice before he died.

He flapped his wings towards his father whose freedom had been taken away heartless rulers.

This child, who was battling the pains of cancer that grownups could not endure, was not even permitted to spend the last days of his life with his father.

Do you think the heartless tyrants felt anything in their conscience?

Rasim Çalışkan, Selman’s father is a literature teacher who had been incarcerated for 4 years. It is during this period Selman developed brain cancer.

LIVES LOST IN THE EGEAN SEA AND MERIC RIVER

 Total barbarianism…

They caused Furkan’s death by not allowing to leave for treatment in Europe.

When the Maden family tried to flee from oppression, their father Hüseyin, a physics teacher along with his 3 children, Nadire (13), Nur (10) and Feridun (7) drowned in the Aegean Sea. Feridun’s little body have never been found.

They said, “serves them right” with no sign of sympathy…

Ahmet Ataç, Ali Yekta, Furkan, Ayşe and Selman, some of the lives lost to cancer caused by grave suffering inflicted by the Erdogan regime…

We are witnessing a genocide, like the one committed by Stalin in the early 20th century.

Erdoğan’s political Islamists and Perinçek’s Maoists are walking on the footsteps of Stalin.

This is not an exaggeration… 

One of the biggest genocides in human history was lived at the time of Stalin. Civilians were massacred by the state during an operation which they called “the great cleansing.”

Hundreds and thousands of civilians who were declared as enemy of the Soviet Union became the victims of this political genocide.

Joseph Stalin, who was a Georgian revolutionary, committed mass atrocities in Central Asia.

He ordered the killing of many Kazak and Kyrgyz intellectuals who were known as ‘Bilge’ or ‘Dahi’.

They were slaughtered and buried to unknown locations.

The so-called ‘Political Repression’ was a great tragedy where thinkers, intellectuals, scholars, and scientists were wiped out.

The only justification for this ethnic cleansing was “they refused to embrace the Soviet ideology”.

Everyone who opposed the new regime was a target.
Stalin inflicted suffering on millions of human beings.

He punished thousands of people based on prejudgment, without any evidence.

For this reason, the month October is considered as a time of grievance in many countries that were part of the old Soviet Union.

Each year, millions of people commemorate the 40 million lives lost during Stalin’s rule.

Jewish, Polish, Kazak, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Caucasian, and Baltic people had lost almost half of their population in prison camps or in exile.

Artists who defended freedom were also slaughtered.

16 years ago, I listened to the story of this genocide from Cengiz Aytmatov, himself.

The script of the popular Turkish movie ‘Selvi Boylum, Al Yazmalım’ starred Kadir İnanır and Türkan Şoray’ was derived from Cengiz Aytmatov’s book.

Aytmatov is an author, journalist, and a politician…

He told the story of the nation of Kyrgyz through his literature.

His father, Torekul Aytmatov was a prominent government official during the Soviet Union period.

I met Cengiz Aytmatov during the Dialogue Eurasia Summit. There were authors, journalists, and academics from all over Asia and Europe.

It was held at Issık Göl, a popular tourist attraction in Kyrgyzstan.

The main theme of the summit was “The culture of living together in Eurasia”

AYTMATOV BECOMES AN ORPHAN

That day, the world-renowned Kyrgyz author explained his story with tears in his eyes.

I remember other journalists and authors listening to his story with tears in their eyes as well. He explained how intellectuals were destroyed by Stalin.

After his father Torekul was killed, his mother Nagima raised young Cengiz who was orphaned in 1937. The Stalin regime took his father from him when he was only 9.

I remember how I was deeply affected after reading his life story from his book “Mother Earth”.

Stalin killed Torekul during the Kyrgyz genocide, after accusing him of being a Kyrgyz nationalist. He did not even return the body to his family for proper burial. Cengiz’s uncle was also killed by Stalin.

In fact, more than 4 thousand Kyrgyz intellectuals were slaughtered by Stalin.

Aytmatov had an extremely difficult childhood as in addition to the pain and suffered during the genocide, he also experienced the harsh conditions of the second WWII.

POSTMAN, THE BEARER OF BAD NEWS

After he completed high school, he became a postman. As he was among the few in the village who knew how to read and write, not only he delivered the mail but also read it for them.

After a while, whenever they saw Aytmatov coming with the mail in his bag, people would burst into tears, knowing that they had lost another family member.

He was not a postman anymore, but a bearer of news of the casualties of war.

 Aytmatov relates the story of the tags of the soldiers who lost their lives and how they were brought to the village, in his ‘Mother Earth’.

He explains that cries would rise from family homes upon seeing the postman approach.

He says that the state had not only taken his father away from him but also stopped him from continuing his education.

They had prevented him from completing his Doctorate.

The Soviet police were always on the watch for the Aytmatov family.

Does it not sound like the witch-hunt we are witnessing in Turkey today?

Aytmatov, though, never gave up on his dreams though…

And his long struggle resulted in worldwide success in literature.

When he died at the age of 76, he had left behind 128 books which were translated into 176 languages.

During the 1990s, Gorbachev started a movement called Glastnost (openness) and Perestroyka (reformation), which tolerated the disclosure of atrocities committed by the Stalin regime. The entire world learned about the pain and suffering endured by people behind the iron curtain.

TODAY WE ARE WITNESSING A SIMILAR OPPRESSION IN TURKEY

Official government records have shown us the magnitude of the genocide and suffering during the Soviet regime. For example, according to a report published by the KGB, between 1930 and 1953, 786,000 people were executed with the accusation of being an enemy of the public. 3 million 800 thousand people were incarcerated for crimes against the state.

Only a few survived the conditions of the prison camps. For this reason, Stalin’s Soviet Union have entered into the pages of the world history as the period of suffering during which millions died of starvation, and hundreds of thousands of people were executed for opposing the regime.

These days, we are witnessing a similar pattern of state crimes committed against humanity in some Muslim nations such as Turkey and Egypt. Heads of states who present themselves as Islamists are tyrannizing and oppressing their citizens simply for not supporting the regime. We are seeing similar atrocities being committed in China, Myanmar, Palestine, and other regions of the world.

THE PAIN AND SUFFERING IN TURKEY TURNED THE COUNTRY INTO AYTMATOV’S VILLAGE

Oppression, torture, imprisonment, abductions, even during the month of Muharram have turned Turkey into Karbala.

We are witnessing a time like that of Aytmotov’s village.

Every day we are hearing the screams of people rising from their homes.

The pallets of tyranny continue to turn…

We are feeling the suffering of every person who are suffering with ailments in dark prison cells.

During Aytmatov’s time it use to take weeks for the mail to arrive.

These days we hear the sad news almost immediately.

What is the difference between the two atrocities?

Aytmatov is a world-renowned thinker.

Stalin is a cursed dictator…

Do you not see the similarities in the fates of Cengiz Aytmatov and little Selman/s?

What is it with these “Georgian dictators”?

Turkish version of the article:

  Cengiz Aytamov ile Selman (lar)ın kader ortaklığı!