Category: World

In the last two days, Turkey’s authorities have detained over 500 government critics including Kurds, Gülen movement followers and protesting university students.

As the country continues to debate a possible snap election, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s pressure on opponents is bringing new mass detentions by the police.

The Gülen movement, which the government accuses of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016, represents the lion’s share of mass detentions in the country. İstanbul prosecutors have issued detention warrants for 294 people, 292 of whom were either active duty soldiers or former soldiers previously dismissed from the ranks over suspected Gülen links. While there are high-ranking officers such as colonels and majors among the suspects, 211 are cadets from a military school that was shut down in 2016. Most of the former cadets continued their higher education at other universities.

Students were the second largest group targeted by the operations, particularly those from İstanbul’s prestigious Boğaziçi University, where the recent appointment of a pro-government politician as rector sparked a wave of protests by students as well as members of the academic staff. A total of 159 Boğaziçi students were detained in İstanbul on Monday. In addition, police in İzmir took into custody 27 students from İzmir University during a protest to demonstrate solidarity with Boğaziçi students.

Levent Pişkin, a lawyer for some of the students, announced that the detainees were threatened with torture and ill-treatment during their interrogation at police centers. Incidents of torture involving allegedly Gülen-linked detainees have become an everyday occurrence. The Ankara Bar Association has published a report on the brutal interrogation of the soldiers who are still being held at the Ankara Police Department. The authorities are keeping silent in the face of the allegations.

Kurds, specifically those involved in pro-Kurdish political activism, are also victims of the mass detentions. In a protest march held by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the southeastern province of Batman on Jan. 29, 23 participants were detained, six of whom are minors.

Increasing political tension

While President Erdoğan has been using reconciliatory rhetoric aimed at normalizing ties with the US and the EU, the atmosphere of pressure is intensifying within the country. In addition to his previous remarks promising democratic and legal reforms, Erdoğan on Monday said they want to draft a new constitution.

The opposition believes Erdoğan is rapidly setting the stage for an election. According to Meral Akşener, leader of the ultranationalist İyi (Good) Party, all of Erdoğan’s moves are indicative of a snap election to be held in June.

Against the backdrop of Erdoğan’s new reform discourse, the country’s police, led by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, have been raising tensions.

Soylu, one of the most powerful ministers in Erdoğan’s cabinet, has adopted the harshest stance against the Boğaziçi students. Soylu has used the word “deviant” on Twitter to refer to a pro-LGBT group among the students.

Soylu’s tweet was blocked from access in France as it was found to be in violation of local laws. When accessed from Turkey, the same tweet has a warning to users that it violates Twitter’s rules on hateful conduct while not blocking it from access as Twitter claimed it would be for the good of the public that it remain open to access. Nevertheless, the warning message was the first time Twitter had imposed a restriction on a Turkish minister.

Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a major ally to Erdoğan, supported the police intervention and slammed the student activists.

“All kinds of insects and anarchist groups have been nesting in this university,” Bahçeli said. “If the gate of Boğaziçi University was locked [by the police], it is to narrow the terrorist groups’ room to maneuver.” turkishminute

According to Human Rights Watch, the largest group targeted by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan consists of people alleged to have links to the Gülen movement, a worldwide civic initiative inspired by the ideas and activism of Fethullah Gülen, a US-based Muslim cleric.

During the year Erdoğan continued to relentlessly pursue anyone with alleged links with the movement. They have been targets of hate speech, hate crimes, unlawful prosecution, torture, and abductions among other serious human rights violations.

Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the movement since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and 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 locked up thousands, including many prosecutors, judges and police officers involved in the investigation.

Some of the claims that were part of the corruption investigations were later substantiated in New York federal court where Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla was sentenced to 32 months for conspiring to violate US sanctions on Iran and other offenses.

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.

Following the failed coup, the Turkish government carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 20,610 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

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

According to a statement from the Turkish interior minister, a total of 292,000 people have been detained while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement since the failed coup.

In an opinion published in September, the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) said widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of the rules of international law of individuals with alleged links to the Gülen movement may constitute crimes against humanity.

Here is some of the most important news from 2020 concerning Erdoğan’s crackdown on the Gülen movement:

Erdoğan said Gülen movement supporters have no property rights

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said at a press conference in December that supporters of the Gülen movement have no right to own property. More..

Erdoğan’s comments reflected the policies implemented by Turkish government agencies since he started targeting the movement in 2013. In October, Nordic Monitor revealed a circular that showed how Turkey’s Land Registry and Cadastre Directorate General bypassed the judiciary to seize the assets of alleged members of the Gülen movement. More..

In June Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry seized the house of an 87-year-old woman in the western province of Manisa because she donated it to a foundation linked to the Gülen movement. More..

Academic said Gülen movement followers should be sent to rehabilitation camps

Communications professor Muttalip Kutluk Özgüven said in a June interview on the pro-government Akit TV that members of the Gülen movement should be sent to rehabilitation camps and subjected to psychological treatment.

“This fight cannot be carried out only with law enforcement measures. We need to establish rehabilitation camps,” said Özgüven. “Their bodies do not belong to them. They have to serve Turkey’s interests.” More..

Special needs school forced disabled girl to leave due to father’s links to Gülen movement

A young girl with major disabilities was forced to leave a public special needs school because her father used to work for an institution that was shut down by a government decree for its affiliation with the Gülen movement. More..

In a similar development, financial assistance paid by the Turkish government to the family of Nurbanu Aydın, a 29-year-old “spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy” patient, was cut off after her father, Muammer Aydın, was arrested on terrorism charges over his links to the Gülen movement. More..

Purged public servants continued to face discrimination

Turkish banks continued to deny basic services to civil servants summarily fired by the Turkish government in the aftermath of an abortive putsch in July 2016. Levent Mazılıgüney, a dismissed public servant, said his credit card application to VakıfBank was denied despite the fact that he is a registered lawyer and his credit score is 1,860 out of 1,900. More..

Purged public servants and members of the armed forces continued to be subjected to various kinds of discrimination throughout the year. A dismissed civil servant was deemed ineligible by Turkey’s Ministry of Treasury and Finance to benefit from a real estate tax break granted to people who have no income. More..

Nebi Toylak, a former public school teacher summarily fired by the Turkish government in the aftermath of an abortive putsch in July 2016, was not allowed to attend a vocational course organized by the Turkish Employment Agency (İŞKUR) because he was a dismissed public servant. More..

A former public servant identified only by the initials A.B., 28, said he was not awarded his certificate by the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Services despite scoring the second highest in a nationwide certification examination because he was dismissed from his previous job by a government decree. More..

OHAL Commission continued to draw criticism

The State of Emergency Procedures Investigation Commission (OHAL Commission), had made decisions on 112,310 of a total of 126,630 applications as of December 31, 2020. It ruled in favor of the applicants in only 13,170 of the cases.

The commission was established as an appeals body under pressure from the Council of Europe in order to relieve the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) of a huge workload emanating from tens of thousands of Turkish applicants who were unable to take their cases to Turkish courts. According to critics, the commission’s role is simply to delay or prevent possible ECtHR decisions against Turkey. The commission is also accused of bias as it is led by former Justice Ministry deputy undersecretary Selahaddin Menteş, who had been openly supportive of President Erdoğan.

In its Turkey 2020 report, the European Commission (EC) raised serious concerns about the ability of the commission to provide an effective remedy to dismissals. The report criticized the lengthy review procedures and underlined that the applicants did not have a proper means of defense as the commission does not hold hearings. The EC also said the commission did not have sufficiently individualized criteria to evaluate the applications.

Individuals with disabilities convicted on terror charges for alleged links to Gülen movement

A young woman was sentenced to six years, three months’ imprisonment in November for alleged membership in a terrorist organization, despite the paralysis of her hands and feet from birth. Fatma Cömert was diagnosed as almost totally disabled and lived her entire life in a wheelchair, unable to leave her home without assistance. However, she has been struggling with court cases for the last 18 months, and if the Supreme Court of Appeals upholds her sentence she will be arrested. More..

Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals upheld a conviction and sentence on the charge of membership in a terrorist organization handed down to Bilal Konakçı, a bomb disposal expert with the police who lost his hand and was blinded in an explosion. He was sentenced to seven years, six months by a local court. More..

Content of censored Council of Europe torture report revealed horrific details of post-coup crackdown

Brutally tortured, robbed of his property and livelihood, imprisoned and his family stigmatized, Col. Cemil Turhan and his story represent the epitome of suffering caused by human rights abuses committed on a massive scale in post-coup Turkey. He was one of the victims who gave a statement to visiting members of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), a Council of Europe-affiliated body. Turkey blocked the publication of the report. More..

Female students strip-searched, denied right to consult lawyer

Female students detained by Turkish police over alleged links to the Gülen movement were subjected to a strip-search and interrogated without a lawyer present. More..

Turkey dropped investigation into demise of teacher who was tortured to death

The İstanbul chief public prosecutor has decided to drop an investigation into the death of Gökhan Açıkkolu, a teacher who died after enduring 13 days of torture and abuse in police custody in İstanbul. More..

Couple subjected to electroshock, beatings, inhumane treatment at Turkish detention center

Müberra and Murat Boşcu, who were detained on October 17, 2016, were subjected to torture including electroshocks, beatings and strip-searches as well as inhumane treatment during their 14-day detention, according to Müberra Boşcu. More..

Torturers threatened me with sexually assaulting my daughter, former teacher said

Police officers threatened me with sexually assaulting my daughter, who was brought with my wife for interrogation, said Mehmet Eren when talking about the brutal torture and inhuman treatment he was subjected to at the Afyon Police Department. More..

Police chief nicknamed ‘Angel of Death’ who ran torture sites in Turkey unmasked in court testimony

A Turkish police chief with the self-proclaimed nickname of Azrael, or the Angel of Death, oversaw two unofficial torture sites with nearly 2,000 people subjected to brutal treatment in 2016, multiple victim statements in court revealed. More..

Female officer raped in detention by Turkish police had to abort pregnancy

A female officer who had served in the Turkish army had to have an abortion after she was raped in police custody, Lt. Abdulvahap Berke told a panel of judges in an Ankara court. More..

I heard screams of women being raped at a Turkish detention center, said torture victim

Erhan Doğan, who was tortured at a gymnasium-turned-detention center in Turkey, recounted for the first time the torture he underwent and witnessed. “The police who tortured me threatened to bring my daughter and my wife and rape them if I did not say what they wanted. I no longer cared about the torture I underwent that night,” Doğan said.

“It took about 45 minutes. Then they took me away, but the torture of the women in the next room continued. Judging from their cries and screams, I am absolutely sure they were raped.” More..

Doctor who witnessed torture in Turkish mass detention center spoke out

A medical doctor who was assigned to conduct physical examinations in a gymnasium-turned-mass detention center following a failed coup in Turkey in 2016 spoke for the first time about the torture he witnessed and recorded there to the Bold Medya news website in an interview with exiled journalist Cevheri Güven. More..

Turkish diplomatic missions spied on individuals affiliated with the Gülen movement

Court documents revealed that Turkish diplomatic missions around the world systematically spied on individuals allegedly linked to the Gülen movement. According to a report by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, 15 Canadian citizens – including academics, journalists, real estate agents and a part-time taxi driver – were named as suspects in a Turkish “terrorism” investigation for supposed criminal activities such as writing or promoting articles supportive of Fethullah Gülen or downloading the ByLock messaging app.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu confirmed systematic spying on Turkish government critics on foreign soil by Turkish diplomatic missions in February 2020. Çavuşoğlu said Turkish diplomats assigned to embassies and consulates have officially been instructed by the government to conduct such activities abroad. “If you look at the definition of a diplomat, it is clear. … Intelligence gathering is the duty of diplomats,” Çavuşoğlu told Turkish journalists on February 16, 2020 following the Munich Security Conference, adding, “Intelligence gathering and information collection are a fact.”

According to court documents, alleged supporters of the Gülen movement were spied on by the Turkish diplomatic missions in the United States, Switzerland, Australia, Bulgaria, Norway, Georgia, Sweden, North Macedonia, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom.

Turkey signed secret agreements to abduct dissidents from foreign countries: UN letter

The Turkish government signed bilateral security cooperation agreements with multiple states that were phrased ambiguously to allow for the expulsion or abduction of Turkish nationals living abroad, a joint UN letter underlined. More..

Widespread or systematic imprisonment of individuals with alleged links to Gülen movement may constitute crimes against humanity: United Nations

Widespread or systematic imprisonment of individuals with alleged links to the Gülen movement may constitute crimes against humanity, said the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), in an opinion on the summary extradition of Arif Komiş, 44, Ülkü Komiş, 38, and their four children from Malaysia to Turkey in August 2019. More..

In a similar case, WGAD concluded that the arrest, detention and forced transfer to Turkey of six Turkish teachers by Kosovar and Turkish state agents in Kosovo on March 29, 2018 was arbitrary and in violation of international human rights norms and standards. More..

Turkish intelligence agency MIT’s secret rendition flight and black torture site exposed

Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) operated a secret rendition flight and initiated a torture session on the spy plane when it abducted a critic of President Erdoğan from Kazakhstan and later subjected the victim to further torture and abuse at a black site near the airport in Ankara, court documents revealed. More..

In Turkey, under normal conditions, the Law on Public Servants requires that disciplinary actions, including dismissal from public service, be recommended by a committee after hearing the employee’s defense. The decision must then be approved by a higher body within the relevant institution and can be challenged in the administrative court system.

But during the state of emergency, public servants were not even informed of accusations against them and were never asked to submit their defenses. Following the end of the state of emergency, a similar regime was created with a temporary law that would be in effect for 36 months, until July 2021. According to this law, officials suspected of membership in or affiliation with entities deemed a threat to national security can be dismissed by the ministers upon the proposal of a disciplinary commission. Since the decisions are not published in the Official Gazette, the full number of summary dismissals during the year is unknown.

20,571 military personnel summarily dismissed from Turkish Armed Forces over alleged Gülen links

A total of 20,571 military personnel have been summarily dismissed from the Turkish  Armed Forces (TSK) since a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement, said Maj. Pınar Kara, press and

public relations officer at Turkey’s Defense Ministry, at a press conference in November. More..

601 military personnel faced dismissal by administrative procedure despite non-prosecution on terrorism charges

Operations against TSK personnel continued throughout the year. In October, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported that the İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office sent the files on 601 military personnel who can’t be prosecuted on terrorism charges due to a lack of evidence to the relevant military commands in order to start the administrative process for their dismissal. More..

New ‘research center’ a dead end for purged diplomats reinstated by the courts

Career diplomats who were purged from the Foreign Ministry by the Turkish government and subsequently reinstated by the courts will be employed at a research center if the foreign minister declines to reappoint them to their former positions, according to a regulation published in Turkey’s Official Gazette in July. The law does not provide any objective criteria as to when a diplomat can be fully reinstated, in essence giving the minister the authority to not fully implement the court decisions. More..

Turkey issued detention warrants for 60 lawyers following Erdoğan’s call to suspend attorneys accused of terrorist links

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in September issued detention warrants for 60 lawyers on terror charges over their alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement, following a call by President Erdoğan for the suspension of lawyers accused of terrorist links. More..

The detentions attracted widespread international criticism. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Rapporteurs from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), six European law associations and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) issued statements condemning the move.

Turkey’s post-coup purge made no exception for children

Turkey’s post-coup purge continued to take a huge toll on human life, making no exceptions for children. Mehmet Fatih, Selman, Eymen and Ali İhsan all developed cancer after their fathers were arrested. Mehmet Akif’s leukemia, from which he had recovered, reappeared when his father was arrested. Receiving dialysis three times a week, Azra Nur’s condition is getting worse by the day. There are also those who were unable to cling to life and succumbed to their illnesses. More..

Death of 8-year-old Ahmet Burhan Ataç revealed plight of children caught up in Turkey’s massive purge

The terrible ordeal of an 8-year-old boy who lost his life to cancer while his father was jailed and his mother tried on fabricated charges illustrates the gravity and extent of blatant violations of fundamental human rights in Turkey.

Ahmet Burhan Ataç, having fought hard to cling to life, finally succumbed to the cancer in the early hours of Thursday, May 7, at Balcalı Hospital in Adana, where he had been taken the evening before. More..

Another child succumbed to cancer without saying goodbye to his jailed father

Seven-year-old Selman Çalışkan succumbed to brain cancer in September without being able to see his father, a teacher jailed on bogus terrorism charges, one last time. Selman was diagnosed with brain cancer a year ago. He underwent surgery in June 2019 to remove a five-centimeter tumor and was partially paralyzed after the operation. His father, Rasim Çalışkan, was only allowed to visit his son twice during his illness, once following the surgery and once when Selman’s condition deteriorated. Çalışkan filed numerous requests to delay his sentence or to serve the remainder under house arrest, but his petitions were all rejected. More..

In July six-year-old Mehmet Erdoğan, whose father is in prison for alleged links to the Gülen movement, died in an Ankara hospital without being able to see his father one last time. Mehmet had undergone surgery for the removal of a cyst in his arm and died unexpectedly due to complications caused by the general anesthesia. A public prosecutor did not allow him to visit his son before the surgery. More..

Girl with Down syndrome left with teenage sister after parents detained for helping refugees

A seven-year-old girl with Down syndrome was left to the care of her teenage sister after her parents, Dudu Karataş (42) and Gökay Karataş (48), were detained on September 8 for helping refugees. The couple was taken into custody for helping Afghan refugees; however, during their interrogation they were asked if they were aiding members of the Gülen movement. More..

Photographs of deputy police inspector who died in prison quarantine show criminal neglect

Photos of former deputy policy inspector Mustafa Kabakçıoğlu, 44, who died in a quarantine cell in prison on August 29, were revealed, shedding light on the unsanitary conditions in which he was forced to live.

In the photographs Kabakçıoğlu’s lifeless body is seen in a chair in a sitting position, his head drooping back and his nails turned blue. The conditions of his prison cell were also photographed, revealing damp and filthy quarters and dirt on his T-shirt. It was obvious he used the trash bin as a dinner table and did not eat his last meal, seen in the photos untouched on top of the bin. More..

Turkish purge victim, rights activist lost battle against cancer

Haluk Savaş, 54, a leading human rights activist and a victim of a large-scale post-coup purge in Turkey, lost his battle against cancer in June. Savaş was a psychiatry professor at Gaziantep University until he was fired by a government decree in 2016 following a coup attempt. He was later arrested over alleged links to the Gülen movement.

In November 2016 he was released pending trial due to a cancer diagnosis, and after one year of treatment he was cured. However, the cancer returned in early 2019. For months he struggled to obtain a passport, despite later being acquitted by a court, to travel abroad in search of a treatment for the cancer. More..

Decorated officer not released by court despite health report died in prison

Mustafa Barış Avıalan, a former staff colonel sentenced to life imprisonment on coup charges, died in prison after a court denied his release despite health reports stating that his sentence needed to be postponed for six months. More..

Air force cadet sentenced to life in prison succumbed to bone cancer

Yusuf Kurt, 25, a former air force cadet sentenced to life in prison on coup charges succumbed to bone cancer in November in Eskişehir. Kurt was among 70 air force cadets sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of attempting to destroy the constitutional order by means of a coup attempt in July 2016. More..

Other victims of the Turkish government’s relentless crackdown on the Gülen movement who passed away in 2020 include:

Gülhan Çolakoğlu, 45, a cancer patient who was unable to receive treatment abroad after Turkish authorities refused to issue her a passport;

Medeni Arifoğlu, a Turkish businessman who was jailed over alleged links to the Gülen movement, succumbed to cancer after he was belatedly released from prison despite his deteriorating health;

Ömer Günerigök, 31, a teacher who was purged from his job and prosecuted by the authorities over Gülen links, succumbed to cancer;

Caner Durukan, 42, a Turkish healthcare worker dismissed from his job in the post-coup purge, died of cancer;

Ümit Gökhasan, a former police superintendent who was not released from prison until his cancer had spread to other parts of his body;

Sevdegül Güler, a bedridden woman whose mother was denied a care allowance by Turkey’s Ministry of Family and Social Policies due to her alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement;

Cengiz Karakurt, 41, a teacher arrested for alleged membership in the Gülen movement, declared brain dead after passing out in his prison cell;

Yusuf Uzun, 36, a teacher dismissed from his job during the post-coup purge, lost his battle with cancer after his belated release from prison;

Ahmet Kaplan, 48, a purged police officer suffering from stage-four lung cancer who died alone in a prison infirmary; and

Hüseyin Özen, 59, an inmate imprisoned for alleged ties to the Gülen movement who passed away due to COVID-19.

A year into his disappearance, authorities kept quiet about the fate of Yusuf Bilge Tunç

Turkish authorities continued to maintain their silence about the fate of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, who went missing in broad daylight on August 6, 2019, leaving no trace behind. He has not been heard from since. All the efforts of his family and human rights defenders to find out what happened to him have proven to be of no avail. More..

Another man testified about torture by security officers during enforced disappearance

Yasin Ugan, who had been missing for six months before suddenly reappearing in police custody, revealed in court that he was tortured by security officers. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a rights activist and a member of parliament, said Ugan had been tortured for six months after being kidnapped on February 13, 2019, with his head covered with a black plastic bag most of the time.

Ugan also said he was only allowed to take three showers during the time he was missing, Gergerlioğlu said. Ugan, a former civil servant fired from his job by the government in the aftermath of a 2016 coup attempt, appeared in court on in June over his alleged membership in the Gülen movement. More..

Turkish courts continued to arrest pregnant women despite regulations

Three pregnant women were arrested in June in Ankara and Manisa on terrorism-related charges on the grounds that they were members of the faith-based Gülen movement, a dissident group that has long been targeted by the government of President Erdoğan. More..

Zeynep Doğan (33), who was seven months pregnant, and her husband Ahmet Doğan (39) were detained in October and were forced to leave their three children under the age of nine behind. More..

Turkish authorities continued to detain and arrest mothers with babies

Suna Aras, the mother of a 9-month-old baby, was sent to prison in October in contravention of the law on the execution of sentences that requires the postponement of the execution of prison sentences for women who are pregnant or have given birth within the last year and a half. More..

In June, Yasemin Çetinkaya, a mother of two, was infected with COVID-19 while in detention in the southeastern city of Diyarbakır, one of a growing number of Turkish women either pregnant or with young children who are detained or arrested in contravention of the law on the execution of sentences. More..

Sultan and İbrahim Ataş, the parents of a 14-month-old-toddler and a 3-year-old girl, were arrested in September despite legal provisions that require postponement of the execution of prison sentences for women who are pregnant or have given birth within the last year and a half. More..

In December Betül Uluşam, 34, was detained at the hospital where she had given birth less than 24 hours after the delivery for alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement. More..

Pregnant woman subjected to sexual harassment and insults by prosecutor during interrogation

Nigar Kocabaş, a pregnant woman who in 2016 was interrogated by Chief Public Prosecutor İbrahim Keskin in the northern Turkish city of Samsun for affiliation with the Gülen movement, claimed she was verbally sexually harassed by the prosecutor. More..

Gov’t releases critically ill prisoners only when they realize they’ll die soon

Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a prominent human rights activist and an MP from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), has depicted the deaths of critically ill prisoners in Turkey who are not released in time to receive proper medical treatment as acts of “murder” committed by the state. “They refuse to release the prisoners until it gets to the point of no return. They only release the prisoners when they realize they will die soon, not wanting them to die in prison,” he said. More..

Cancer patient was refused postponement of sentence, sent back to prison after major surgery

Ümit Gökhasan, a cancer patient imprisoned on alleged links to the Gülen movement, whose stomach and half of his esophagus were removed in an operation, was sent back to prison after a medical report found that he could survive in prison and that there was no need to postpone his sentence. More..

Turkey’s top court denied release of former colonel suffering from advanced stage MS

Mustafa Özcan Çay, a former staff colonel convicted on coup charges, was denied release from prison by Turkey’s Constitutional Court despite his inability to perform even the most basic tasks such as eating, drinking and using the bathroom without assistance due to advanced stage multiple sclerosis (MS). More..

Turkey’s Constitutional Court denied release request of inmate with brain tumors

Turkey’s top court in September denied the request for release of Lütfi Koç, 46, who was imprisoned on links to the Gülen movement, despite suffering from two brain tumors and a hernia. More..

Son of jailed prosecutor suffering from brain tumor pleaded for father’s release

The son of Sadrettin Sarıkaya, a former specially authorized prosecutor who was arrested on charges of membership in the Gülen movement in 2017, pleaded for the release of his father, who remains in prison despite suffering from a brain tumor and other health problems. More..

Kahraman Sezer, 44, the former chief superintendent of the national police imprisoned on terrorism-related charges due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement, died on January 30 in the southern city of İskenderun due to complications arising from COVID-19, Turkish media reported.

Sezer was dismissed from the Turkish National Police by a government decree in the aftermath of a coup attempt in July 2016. He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment by the Diyarbakır 8th High Criminal Court on March 23, 2018 for “membership in a terrorist organization” and had been held in İskenderun Prison for the last four-and-a-half years.

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. Erdoğan intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding.

In a tweet human rights defender and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu said Sezer’s wife had been unable to visit the former police chief for a year and half due to financial problems, noting the situation of purge victims.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 20,610 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

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

In August, another former police officer, Mustafa Kabakçıoğlu, was found dead in a quarantine cell in a prison in the Black Sea city of Gümüşhane after spending nine days in quarantine due to COVID-19.

Twelve-year-old Hakan Dağdeviren, whose parents were arrested on politically motivated terrorism charges, was diagnosed with leukemia last week, leading to calls from human rights activists for the release of his parents, Bold Medya reported.

The young boy was fatigued and exhibiting rashes a couple of weeks ago and was taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with leukemia and was informed that cancer had metastasized to his liver, abdomen, neck, and armpits. According to his grandparents, Hakan’s morale was very low and he had been suffering from psychological problems since his parents’ arrest.

Hakan’s parents, Sabriye and Gökhan Dağdeviren, were arrested two years ago for alleged links to the Gülen movement. His mother, Sabriye Dağdeviren, was sentenced to six years, 10 months in prison and his father, Gökhan Dağdeviren, was sentenced to 19 years. Both are serving time in Eskisehir Prison, while Hakan and his sister Halenur, are being taken care of by their grandparents.

Grandfather Ali Dağdeviren, 70, was also arrested on similar charges despite suffering from multiple health conditions. He was sentenced to six years, 10 months in prison and was released pending trial. However, he will be rearrested if the Supreme Court of Appeals upholds his sentence.

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 locked up thousands including many prosecutors, judges, and police officers involved in the investigation as well as journalists who reported on them.

Grandmother Meral Dağdeviren said the ordeals had been traumatic for the whole family. “My grandson needs his parents, especially his mother. He already suffered enough during their arrest, and he needs to get through this illness with the help of his parents,” she said.

Meral Dağdeviren added that they had not been able to tell the parents about their son’s diagnosis. “We could not bring ourselves to tell them, how can we? We could only tell them that he was sick, but not the final diagnosis,” she said.

Following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and launched a massive crackdown on followers of the Gülen movement under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. According to a statement from Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on Nov. 26, a total of 292,000 people have been detained while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement. Fethullah Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive coup or any terrorist activity.

Turkey’s post-coup purge has taken a huge toll on human life, making no exceptions for children. Several children such as Ahmet Burhan Ataç, Mehmet Fatih Dedeoğlu, Selman Çalışkan, Eymen Küçükaydoğan, Ali Ihsan Başer, and Furkan Dizdar were diagnosed with cancer after their fathers were arrested. Some of these children were unable to cling to life and succumbed to their illnesses. According to the doctors, their fragile bodies were not able to process the sorrow and affliction caused by the persecution of their fathers.

According to a regulation on the execution of sentences, the sentences of prisoners whose first-degree relatives are seriously ill may be postponed for one year. But the authorities refuse to apply this regulation when it comes to Gülen followers. stockholmcf.org/

“During my 10 days in detention, I could hear the screams of other detainees who were being tortured,” said Servet Erdil when talking about the brutal torture and inhumane treatment he witnessed at Ankara police headquarters.

Speaking to journalist Basri Doğan from TR7/24, Erdil, a former bureaucrat, said he was torn between horror and pity because he knew he could be next in line for torture. He added that conditions in detention were dismal and that they were 19 people in a small room for 10 days.

Erdil said there was a woman who had just given birth in detention who was separated from her baby. He said the woman would lactate into a plastic bottle and send the milk to her infant. Erdil added that the woman fainted a few times in the corridor and that they would watch her as she passed by to make sure she was alright.

Erdil was working for the Ministry of Justice when he was detained in December 2016 for alleged links to the Gülen movement. 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.

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.

Erdil claimed that during detention he was pressured into “giving up names” of other people in the movement and invoking the effective remorse law. He said they were told that if they wanted to be released, they needed to provide names.

“Normally before court, you are questioned by the prosecutor. However, we never even saw the prosecutor,” said Erdil. “The only people who were taken to the prosecutor were those who wanted to invoke the effective remorse law.”

Upon being arrested, Erdil said they were taken to a room with 70 men in Ankara’s Sincan Prison, notorious for its high number of political prisoners, and they were told to stand still. He said they were left there for a day and that he could not breathe for lack of air. The next day he was subjected to a strip-search. He said he was later given some sort of an apron and made to walk across the prison complex in plain view of the others.

“I have never felt more humiliated in my entire life,” Erdil said. “I felt as if I were violated and dehumanized at that moment.”

According to Erdil he stayed in a cramped prison ward with 30 other men. He said he lost 17 kilograms in 15 months because the food was inedible.

After being released pending trial, Erdil said he could not continue living in Turkey because life had become unbearable. He said his bank cards had been canceled, his account had been frozen and he had to check in with the local police station every week. “They [authorities] left us in a state of nothingness,” he said.

Erdil and his family decided to leave the country and are currently refugees in the Netherlands. The number of Turkish asylum seekers has skyrocketed in the recent past due to a dramatic increase in the number of gross human rights violations committed by the Turkish government.

Following the abortive putsch, the government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. Over 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 20,610 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

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

New analysis has found that New Zealand has handled the coronavirus pandemic more effectively than any other country in the world.

Australian think tank the Lowy Institute has crunched reams of data to produce a new interactive that assesses the coronavirus response of almost 100 nations.

Researchers tracked COVID-19 case numbers in each country, as well as confirmed deaths and testing rates.

While New Zealand took top spot, it was closely followed by Vietnam, Taiwan and Thailand, which were ranked second, third and fourth, respectively.

Australia also performed strongly and was ranked eighth in the world by the Lowy Institute.

The United States has been ravaged by the pandemic and languishes near the bottom of the table, at number 94. Indonesia and India did not perform much better, sitting at numbers 85 and 86, respectively.

Lowy did not rate China’s response to the pandemic, citing a lack of publicly available testing data.

The Institute’s Herve Lemahieu said the interactive showed that smaller countries had typically tackled COVID-19 more effectively than big countries.

“Countries with populations fewer than 10 million people proved more agile, on average, than the majority of their larger counterparts in handling the health emergency,” he told the ABC’s Coronacast podcast.

Several small countries — including Cyprus, Rwanda, Iceland and Latvia — round out the list of top-10 nations.

Mr Lemahieu said the data also disproved the theory that authoritarian regimes had managed the crisis more effectively than democracies.

“Authoritarian regimes, on average, started off better — they were able to mobilise resources faster, and lockdowns came faster,” Mr Lemahieu said.

“But to sustain that over time was more difficult for them.”

In contrast, many democracies initially responded poorly to the pandemic before “improving remarkably” after the first wave.

But some major democratic nations — including the United States and the United Kingdom — then failed to capitalise on that progress because they failed to impose sufficiently strict health measures.

Mr Lemahieu said the countries at the top of the list included liberal democracies, authoritarian and hybrid regimes, but all enjoyed the benefits of effective institutions.

“The dividing line in effective crisis response has not really been about regime type but whether citizens trust their leaders and whether those leaders preside over a competent and effective state,” Mr Lemahieu said.

“And that seems to favour countries with smaller populations, more cohesive societies and more capable institutions.”

0100200300Days since 100th case1001k10k100k1M10MCumulative known casessince 100th caseAustraliaBrazilChinaIndiaJapanMexicoRussiaSwedenUSS. KoreaNZTaiwanUK

Data sources: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, Our World in Data, The COVID Tracking Project, ABC

He said wealthier countries had typically managed the outbreak more effectively than poorer countries, but then lost their lead by the end of 2020 as infections again surged in places like Europe and North America.

“One of the remarkable findings of this study is that there has been more or less a level playing field between developing and rich countries, because measures needed to stem the virus have been quite low tech,” he said.

But Mr Lemahieu predicted that poorer countries would soon lose ground as they struggled to obtain COVID-19 vaccines for their citizens.

“With the uneven distribution and hoarding of vaccines we may well see rich countries get a decisive upper hand in crisis recovery efforts,” he said.

It is unlikely that relations between Turkey and the United States will improve under the Joe Biden administration, the former U.S. Syria envoy James Jeffrey said on Tuesday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has failed to “seize opportunities’’ and take compromising steps on a number of issues over which former U.S. President Donald Trump offered Turkey concessions, Jeffrey told Deutsche Welle Turkish.

In recent year, relations between the NATO allies have been strained by a string of issues, including Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence system, the threat of sanctions against Turkey’s state-owned Halkbank for evading Iran sanctions and Turkey’s stance against an array of regional players in war-torn Libya, among others.

The former top U.S. envoy for Syria pointed to the Ankara-Washington crisis over the S-400 systemsin particular as a barrier in improving bilateral relations.

“The S-400s are a disaster for  Turkey… Purchasing them was a historic mistake,’’ Jeffrey said, noting that the acquisition cost Ankara the F-35 fighter jet programme.

Turkey acquired the Russian systems in 2019, despite threats of sanctions from the United States, which says the system potentially undermines NATO’s defences.

The purchase prompted the U.S.’ removal of Turkeyfrom the F-35 joint strike fighter programme and Washington last month slapped Turkey with sanctions over the systems.

Trump made multiple attempts to compromise with Erdoğan over the matter, Jeffrey said, but Ankara would not cooperate.

The former U.S. envoy also said Turkey needs to address with Russia its concerns over the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northeastern Syria.

The U.S. failed in convincing Turkey of its stance on the YPG, Jeffrey said, noting that this was something that upset Washington.

The Kurdish-majority YPG militia in Syria has played a vital role in the U.S.-led coalition’s ground operations against the Islamic State (ISIS). But Turkey views the YPG as a PKK offshoot – thus a threat to national security – and has conducted three campaigns into Syria to push the group south from the Turkish-Syrian border region.

During her party’s parliamentary group meeting, İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener criticized Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its opposition ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), for remaining silent about the sufferings of the Uighur Turks in Xinjiang at the hands of China. She said the Turkish government remains a silent spectator of the Chinese aggression towards the Uighurs, while the EU and the US raise their voices against it.

Akşener then allowed a Uighur woman named Nursiman Abduraşid to speak about the tragedies suffered by the Uighur Turks in Xinjiang, which led Turkish TV stations that were broadcasting the meeting live to cut off their broadcasts. The state-run Anadolu news agency and Turkish Parliament TV continued their broadcasts after the Uighur woman finished her speech.

Abduraşid said she has been unable to reach her family in in Xinjiang since June 2017 and had just learned that they were taken to internment camps and then arrested. Abduraşid asked Turkey and the world to take action to end the suffering of the Uighurs.

China’s persecution of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang has escalated in recent years, amounting to what experts have said is cultural genocide. More than 1 million people are thought to have been detained in internment camps, and there is growing evidence of re-education programs, restrictions on religious and cultural beliefs, enforced labor schemes, mass surveillance and forced sterilization of women.

China initially denied the camps existed but now describes them as vocational schools aimed at dampening the allure of Islamist extremism and violence.

Many Uighurs have fled to Turkey to escape persecution. However, Ankara is accused of having grown closer to Beijing in recent years and increasing its assistance in apprehending or interrogating Uighurs who Chinese authorities have accused of terrorism. While it refuses to return Uighurs to China directly, Turkey has been accused of sending them to a third country, like Tajikistan, where extradition to China is easier.

The family of Murat Tekin, who was killed by a mob on the Bosporus Bridge on the night of a 2016 failed coup in Turkey, has been ordered by a court to pay compensation to the state for damages to public property, Turkish Minute reported, citing Tekin’s sister.

Murat Tekin, 25, was one of a group of cadets who were deployed to the Bosporus Bridge in İstanbul on the night of the coup attempt, which claimed the lives of 250 people and was suppressed overnight. His sister, Mehtap, has claimed his throat was slashed by an angry mob, backing up her allegation with an autopsy report that stated his body exhibited injuries caused by sharp objects.

His family was unable to claim Tekin’s body until 12 days after the coup attempt.

On Sunday Mehtap Tekin, who has been seeking justice for her brother for four years, announced on Twitter that her family is again in difficulty due to compensation demanded by the state for damage to public property caused by her brother on the night of the coup. The sister said the family’s automobile had been seized by the state.

Mehtap Tekin said while the perpetrators of the murder of her brother go unpunished and that it is they who should be demanding compensation from the state, the state is seeking compensation from them.

Biz kardeşimi devletin askeri okuluna devlete emanet ettik!Sahip çıkacağız dediniz.Katledenlerin Yargılanmasını reddettiniz. Cesedine işkence edenlere sesiniz çıkmadı.Devlet malına zarar vermekten tazminat ödememizi istiyorsunuz15 temmuzda kardeşim mi mala zarar verdi!

— Şehit Murat Tekin (@Harbiyeli_Murat) January 24, 2021

“You massacred my brother with knives, you denigrated his dead body, his memory. Are you now demanding compensation from us, and even with interest?” tweeted Mehtap Tekin.

“You took the life of my brother. What more do you want? Let us live with our pain,” she added.

Military cadets who were taken to the Bosporus Bridge on the night of the coup attempt claim they did not have any idea about the coup unfolding as their superiors told them there was a terrorist attack on the bridge. Many of these cadets have been behind bars since the abortive putsch and have been given life sentences on coup charges.

In a unanimous decision, Turkey’s Constitutional Court in November found a government decree that granted immunity to civilians who were involved in criminal activities to suppress a military coup attempt in 2016 to be constitutional.

Turkey is accused of detaining Uyghur refugees for alleged ties to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and sending them to removal centers for deportation to China, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported citing Gazete Duvar news website.

Turkish police raided the homes of some Uyghur refugees on the night of January 18 and detained between 10 and 15 of them. Amine Bekir, 40, was one. According to her daughter Aliye Bekir, she was first taken to a police station and then to a removal center in the Silivri district of İstanbul. She was released the following night.

Speaking to Alper Budka of Gazete Duvar, Aliye said the police officers treated them well when they came to their house but that wasn’t the case with Abdullah Metseydi, another Uighur who was detained that day. “They pointed a gun to his head,” she said.

According to his wife Melike, who spoke to Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur service, the police asked Abdullah Metseydi if he had ever called for jihad against China. He said, “No, I’ve never heard of any such thing.” In response, the police said he would directly be deported to China together with his wife if he was ever involved in any such activity.

Melike Metseydi said the police made him sign many documents without the presence of his lawyer. When she asked when her husband would be back, one of the officers said he would be sent back to China. Yet another officer said he would be back after his interrogation was over and that he could get information from the Kanarya Police Station in the Sefaköy district of İstanbul.

When Melike went to the police station in the morning, though, she was told her husband was sent to the removal center in Silivri. He is still under detention.

Aliye Bekir says the Turkish government is adopting the same tactics as the Chinese against Uyghurs in Turkey. “When we were in East Turkestan [Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China], if Chinese authorities wanted to arrest someone they would basically say that person was an ISIL militant,” she says. “We are experiencing something similar today.”

Turkey has been a destination for thousands of Uyghurs fleeing China and has become home to a sizable Uyghur diaspora. But a Turkey-China extradition treaty that was signed in 2017 that is still awaiting ratification by the Turkish parliament led to fears that it could be used to target Uyghurs living in Turkey.

According to a Nordic Monitor report, the text of the treaty contains ambiguous phrases that might trigger the extradition of scores of Uyghurs from Turkey and violate extradition mechanisms regulated by the European Convention on Extradition (ECE), to which Turkey is a party.

Unlike similar treaties, Article 2 (2) of the Turkey-China deal reveals that “it shall not matter whether the laws of both Parties place the offence within the same category or describe the offence by the same terminology.” According to the article, the parties could request the extradition of its citizens despite the fact that the offense does not fall within the scope of the provisions of the other party’s relevant laws.

The treaty, which was signed during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Beijing in 2017, was ratified by the Chinese side on December 26, 2019.

Speaking to journalists about the questions surrounding the extradition treaty, Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesperson Ömer Çelik said this was just a common extradition treaty that Turkey signs with various countries. Underlining that the treaty was in line with international law, Çelik said Turkey has similar agreements with 32 countries.

“It is wrong to present this treaty as if it were against our Uyghur brothers,” Çelik said. “This is an agreement on the extradition of criminals.”

Aliye Bekir thinks otherwise. According to her, Uyghurs are no longer safe in Turkey. “We don’t expect any brotherhood from Turkey anymore,” she says. “All we ask [them] is to show some humanity.”

Professor İlyas Doğan of Ankara University’s faculty of law says he suspects that the Turkish government is laying the groundwork for the implementation of the extradition treaty. Doğan says for now Uyghurs who have limited social contacts are targeted.

“They usually raid their houses around midnight. They say the reason for their detention is due to membership in ISIL,” Professor Doğan says. “Yet, they don’t direct any ISIL-related accusations during their detention.”

According to his account, they are held at the nearest police station for a couple of days and then sent to removal centers. Doğan says this was exactly what happened with Amine Bekir. The authorities decided to deport her but then released her, at least for now.

According to Nureddin İzbasar of the East Turkestan Human Rights Association, similar operations have been carried out since 2017. He says it is very difficult to get details about the investigations into Uyghurs especially because the operations are conducted by the counterterrorism police. That’s why they still don’t know how many people were detained on the night of January 18.

The extradition of asylum seekers in Turkey has caused an outcry from human rights activists in the past. In 2019 Iranian nationals Saeed Tamjidi (27) and Mohammad Rajabi (25), who sought asylum in Turkey, were extradited to Iran by the Turkish government despite the knowledge that they could face the death penalty.

Under international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement prohibits states from transferring or removing individuals from their jurisdiction or effective control when there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be at risk of irreparable harm upon return, including persecution, torture, ill-treatment or other serious human rights violations. Under international human rights law, the prohibition of refoulement is explicitly included in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED).