Category: World

As part of an investigation launched by the Bartın Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, police earlier this week raided a warehouse in in the Gölbucak neighborhood that contained sugar, oil, legumes and cleaning materials that were alleged to be used to meet the needs of families of people who were expelled from public service via decree-laws, who were in prison due to alleged links to the Gülen movement or who were just released.

Police detained 37 people, confiscating their cash, jewelry, mobile phones and computers in a Bartın-based operation that was also conducted in Karabük, İstanbul and Isparta provinces.

Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and a prominent defender of human rights, on Friday said in a video he released on Twitter that the warehouse raided by the police didn’t belong to Gülenists but was a part of a grocery store and that supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were also among those detained in the operation he described as “ridiculous.”

“Now you can be declared a terrorist while shopping at a grocery store,” the MP said, claiming that the operation was conducted by the Bartın Police Department just to win the favor of the new Bartın governor who took office two weeks ago.

Mustafa Yeneroğlu, a former AKP politician and current member of the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), also criticized the operation, referring to a report by the pro-government Yeni Şafak daily, which ran the headline “FETÖ’s food storage” when covering the police raid.

FETÖ is a derogatory term used by the Turkish government to refer to the faith-based Gülen movement as a terrorist organization.

Yeneroğlu said: “Look at this news mentality. … If you were [real] journalists, you would question this understanding of the law. If you valued Islam, you would know how prisoners were treated after the battle of Badr. [They say] food aid was provided to people. Grudges and hatred destroyed their minds so much so that [they question] how is it that they [Gülenists] aren’t condemned to starvation? Somehow everything is legitimate [when it’s done] against FETÖ [members].”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, 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. He 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.

Following the coup attempt, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency, which remained in force for two years, and carried out a massive purge of state institutions, summarily dismissing more than 130,000 public servants including academics, teachers, diplomats and police officers with emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations.”

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

Such daily activities as having an account at or depositing money in a Gülen movement-affiliated bank, working at any institution linked to the movement or subscribing to certain newspapers and magazines were accepted as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged members of the movement.

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.

TurkishMinute

Turkey’s unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 11.3 percent in April, while a seasonally adjusted measure of labor underutilization fell 0.7 percentage points to 21.7 percent, data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) showed on Friday.

The labor underutilization measure was on a declining trend for much of last year after peaking at 29.5 percent in January 2021 under the impact of measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The employment rate was 47.1 percent with a 0.6 percentage point monthly rise as the number of employed rose by 408,000 to 30.4 million.

The labor force participation rate rose 0.7 percentage points from a month earlier to 53.1 percent in April, data from TurkStat also showed.

TurkishMinute

Metin Yıldız was sent to prison in central Turkey’s Konya province after the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld a six year, three month prison sentence. He was accused of working at a private tutoring center affiliated with the movement. His wife, Dudu Yıldız, was arrested on similar charges in August 2021 and is currently in prison.

The children, who are all under the age of 10, have been left to the care of their elderly grandmother.

Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), expressed outrage over the father’s arrest on Twitter.

“The mother is already in prison, and now so is the father,” he said. “The children are left to the care of their grandmother. What will happen to these children? What about their mental health?”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, 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. He 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.

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

The purge has damaged the unity of many families and left children to the care of relatives. Such separations have had a negative impact on the mental and physical well-being of children. In cases where grandparents are responsible for the child’s care, they cannot meet every need, especially in education.

TurkishMinute

The Republic of Turkey was one of four main countries engaged in espionage activities and in seeking to exert influence on Germany in 2021, Deutsche Welle Turkish service reported on Tuesday, citing a report by German intelligence.

The other countries grouped with Turkey were the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The assessment was included in an annual report for 2021 by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) –- the country’s domestic security agency -– which was made public by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and BfV President Thomas Haidenwang.

According to DW, the report said the espionage activities of foreign powers gradually took on a “difficult” character and that they “posed a serious threat” to Germany and the interests of the German government last year.

The investigation by the relevant countries into opposition groups in Germany and attempts to infiltrate them not only “led to a climate of fear” but also “posed a threat to life safety” in the country, the BfV’s 2021 report said.

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) was described by the report as the “central element of the Turkish security architecture” that helps the Turkish government, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) implement government policy, maintain domestic security and gather information to prepare policy decisions.

“Germany remains one of the top foreign intelligence targets of the Turkish intelligence services and security authorities,” the report says, adding that they focus, above all, on individuals and organizations that oppose or are thought to oppose the Turkish government, especially members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and people with ties to the faith-based Gülen movement.

Designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the EU and the US, the PKK has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, 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. He 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.

Turkey also focuses its intelligence or influence activities in Germany on politics, industry and the military, as well as research and high-tech sectors and their effects on the EU and NATO, the report said, adding that pro-Turkish-government organizations, such as the Union of International Democrats (UID)– known as Erdoğan’s largest network in Europe — promote the current politics in Germany and other European countries.

The report lists Turkish Hezbollah (TH), Millî Görüş movement and affiliated associations (IGMG) and Furkan Gemeinschaft (Furkan Community) as the Islamist extremist organizations and the PKK, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) and the right-wing Turkish Ülkücü movement as the extremist organizations of foreigners that are followed by the BfV for posing a threat to security.

The number of criminal and violent offenses associated with extremism by foreigners increased by 17.4 percent in 2021 to 776, according to the report.

Speaking during a press meeting, Haldenwang said they considered a possible scenario in which the Turkish government might further increase its activities in Germany and tensions might escalate among Turkish society in Germany before the elections that are expected to be held next year in Turkey.

“We are in dialogue with our Turkish partners. We’ll follow all the relevant clues within the scope of our work in which we … monitor Turkish organizations as well. We’ll also take the necessary steps,” Haldenwang said.

Stating that they closely monitor the conflicts in Turkey and their reflections on Germany, Feaser also said they would strive “to ensure that the conflicts in Turkey don’t move here to Germany.”

TurkishMinute

Eight academics were detained during police raids on their homes in Bitlis, and the police are still searching for the other four suspects wanted in that province. The prosecutor ordered the detention of the academics based on anonymous witness statements.

One person was detained in Gaziantep for attending a private school affiliated with the movement several years ago. The six other suspects were not found at their addresses in that province.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, 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. He 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.

Witness statements have caused tens of thousands of people to be imprisoned in Turkey over alleged links to the movement in the past several years, despite a landmark decision in 2021, when the Constitutional Court ruled that the statement of an eyewitness cannot be regarded as evidence of terrorism in the case of a former military officer imprisoned in late 2017.

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

Such daily activities as having an account at or depositing money in a Gülen movement-affiliated bank, working at any institution linked to the movement or subscribing to certain newspapers and magazines were accepted as benchmarks for identifying and arresting alleged members of the movement.

TurkishMinute

HungerMap, a near real-time food security monitoring system of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), has revealed that 14.8 million people are experiencing insufficient food consumption in Turkey, a country with a population of 82.3 million.

The figure shows that the number of those suffering from malnutrition in Turkey increased by 410,000 within the past three months and 50,000 compared to a month ago.

According to Hunger Map, 1.7 percent of children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition in Turkey, while 6 percent of them suffer from chronic malnutrition.

The region with the highest rate of malnutrition in the country is the southeastern province of Şırnak with 20.25 percent, the data also show.

On a larger scale, 866 million people do not have sufficient food consumption across 92 countries around the world, with 333 million people in 36 countries suffering from actual malnutrition, and the WFP estimating there are 533 million people in 56 countries in the same situation, Bianet reported on Monday, citing HungerMap.

Over the past several years Turkey has been suffering from a deteriorating economy, with high inflation and unemployment, as well as a poor human rights record. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is criticized for mishandling the economy, emptying the state’s coffers and establishing one-man rule in the country where dissent is suppressed and opponents are jailed on politically motivated charges.

The country is currently in the middle of an economic crisis as food and fuel prices have more than doubled in the last few months. An increasing number of Turks have complained on social media about rising electricity bills and falling into debt. Many have said even basic foods such as vegetables have become a luxury as prices have risen by nearly 400 percent.

Turkey’s inflation climbed to its highest level since 1998, hitting an annual 73.5 percent in May, according to official data, while the Inflation Research Group (ENAG), made up of independent Turkish economists, said last week that inflation actually accelerated by a whopping 160.8 percent, more than twice the official figure.

TurkishMinute

According to her family, Sulukan had never experienced a seizure before. She was supposed to be taking supplements to support her treatment but she currently cannot in prison. They believe this is why Sulukan experienced a seizure.

In a recent letter to Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, Sulukan said she did not have access to proper healthcare or good nutrition in prison, which set back her treatment.

“There is no physiotherapist in prison, and I am supposed to have heart surgery, but I can’t at the moment,” she said. “My health is not going to improve here but will instead get worse.”

Sulukan, a former teacher who has been suffering from paralysis for more than a year, was sent to prison in early May after the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld a six year, three month prison sentence due to her affiliation with the movement.

Turkey’s 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. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch on July 15, 2016.

There have even been cases when women arrested on Gülen links died in jail after they were denied critical medication by the prison authorities or when women were sent to jail immediately after delivery with their newborns, contrary to the law.

Turkey’s women rights organizations and opposition parties are criticized for turning a blind eye to the plight of these women and not raising their voices against their imprisonment on what many say are politically motivated charges.

According to Mezopotamya, among those detained by the police as part of the operation are the party’s Edirne Provincial Co-Chair Melahat Çelik, former Tekirdağ Provincial Co-Chair Alev Ateş, Kırıkkale Provincial Co-Chair Yakup Aslan, the Marmara Association for Solidarity with Prisoner and Convict Families (MATUHAYDER) director Cihan Kartal and the Migrants’ Association for Social Cooperation and Culture (Göç-Der) director Şeref Kaya, along with Abdurrahman Öztürk, Kenan Yıldız, Ömer Güven, Hüseyin Gözen, Emin Şen, Ercan Ogeday, Ramazan Kırkpınar and İrfan Hülakü.

As part of the operation carried out early on Friday, the police also searched the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Congress (HDK) headquarters in İstanbul’s Beyoğlu district and seized some materials, Mezopotamya said.

“Our eyes have been opened with the Tekirdağ detention frenzy, among which there are some of our co-chairs. Many of our friends are in custody. They’re trying to take away our right to do politics. We continue to struggle, to resist. Not long now…” the HDP’s İstanbul Provincial Co-Chair Ferhat Encü said in a tweet.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), together with its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), have long portrayed the HDP as the political front of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the EU and the US, and has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The party denies links to the PKK and says it is working to achieve a peaceful solution to Turkey’s Kurdish issue and is only coming under attack because of its strong opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 19-year rule.

The political and legal assault on the HDP, which intensified after a truce between Kurdish militants and the AKP government broke down in 2015, grew even stronger after Erdoğan survived a coup attempt in July 2016 that was followed by a sweeping political crackdown.

The party currently faces a closure case on charges of “attempting to destroy the indivisibility between the state and the people.”

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.

TurkishMinute

A journalist close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and her husband have filed a criminal complaint against 33 people, including opposition politicians and journalists, on allegations that include “membership in a terrorist organization,” Turkish Minute reported.

Journalist Hilal Kaplan and her husband Süheyb Öğüt are known for running a troll group named Pelikan that had forced then-prime minister and current leader of the opposition Gelecek (Future) Party Ahmet Davutoğlu to resign in May 2016 with a list of unattributed files they published in April 2016. The files detailed issues of conflict between Davutoğlu and Erdoğan and harshly criticized Davutoğlu for refusing to push Erdoğan’s political agenda.

According to Turkish media reports, Kaplan, a columnist for the government-controlled Sabah daily and Daily Sabah newspapers and a board member of Turkish state broadcaster TRT, and Öğüt will be represented by lawmakers Selman Öğüt and Hadi Dündar.

The couple accuses 33 people of “membership in a terrorist organization,” “spreading propaganda for a terrorist organization,” “insult,” “slander,” “fabricating a crime” and other offenses revealed by the prosecutor’s office.

Former Justice and Development Party (AKP) İstanbul Provincial Chair Selim Temurçi, the Turkish Workers’ Party (TİP) İstanbul lawmaker Ahmet Şık, lawyer Fidel Okan and the Eurasia Public Research Center (AKAM)’s owner Kemal Özkiraz, along with journalists İsmail Saymaz, Bülent Korucu, Tarık Toros, Said Sefa, Emre Uslu, Adem Yavuz Arslan, Barış Terkoğlu and Barış Pehlivan are among those facing the accusations.

AKAM’s Özkiraz reacted to the case filed against them in a series of tweets, saying: “It doesn’t bother me at all that Hilal Kaplan and Süheyb Öğüt call me a member of an [terrorist] organization. They have called many people many things, destroying their lives. If they hadn’t called people like us [dissidents] such things, I would think there was something wrong with me. I would feel ashamed and doubt myself.”

Through a referendum in April 2017 Turkey switched from a parliamentary system of governance to an executive presidential system that granted Erdoğan and his AKP government sweeping powers and was criticized for removing constitutional checks and balances, thus leading to a further weakening of Turkish democracy.

Erdoğan and the AKP brand all their critics as terrorists. Many politicians, including former co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, are currently behind bars, along with dozens of journalists. SCF

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed a lawsuit against main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu over recent claims that the president and his close circle are planning to flee the country to avoid prosecution when the government changes, local media reported on Friday.

Kılıçdaoğlu claimed earlier this week that Erdoğan and people in his close circle, including his family members, are planning to flee Turkey and that 1 billion lira ($61.6 million) had been transferred to the United States through the pro-government Service for Youth and Education Foundation of Turkey (TÜRGEV) and the Ensar Foundation to help to obtain residence and work permits in the US.

The TÜRGEV and Ensar foundations jointly established the Turken Foundation Inc., and according to documents shared by the CHP’s US representative Yurter Özcan, a total of $61.6 million was transferred from the TÜRGEV and Ensar foundations to the Turken Foundation between 2014 and 2020.

“Your son Bilal Erdoğan is the one who transferred the money through these foundations. [And] on the receiving end of the money is your daughter Esra Albayrak. As brother and sister, they manage the foundations, [and] transfer money to each other. TURKEN is a front foundation, [and] its purpose is to transfer wealth and people to the US,” the CHP leader said in a series of tweets on Friday, giving the names of Erdoğan’s children for the first time while explaining their involvement in the money transfers.

The lawsuit filed by Erdoğan’s lawyer Hüseyin Aydın against Kılıçdaroğlu at the Ankara Civil Court of First Instance claims that the opposition leader’s allegations were “totally unrealistic” and constituted “a serious attack” on the president’s personal rights.

Meanwhile, Turkish media on Friday reported that the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog, was preparing to impose a fine on the pro-opposition Tele1, Halk TV and KRT TV stations for broadcasting a video posted on Twitter by Kılıçdaroğlu earlier this week in which he gave details about his allegations, citing a RTÜK member.

RTÜK member İlhan Taşçı from the CHP said in a series of tweets on Friday that the decision to impose a fine on the three TV stations for broadcasting the allegations made by the CHP leader, due to complaints by the TÜRGEV and Ensar foundations, would be announced on Monday.

“RTÜK considers it a crime to broadcast the statements of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the main opposition party! The justification is that they were ‘uncorroborated’ [allegations]! The TV channels are to be fined for this … broadcasts that are newsworthy all over the world,” Taşçı said.

Erdoğan is accused by critics of establishing one-man rule in the country, engaging in massive corruption and using the state’s resources for the benefit of his family and cronies while the Turkish people are overwhelmed by the increasing cost of living caused by the depreciation of the Turkish lira and a record level of inflation at around 70 percent.

Public surveys show Erdoğan and his election ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), losing considerable public support.