Category: World

Fatma Görmez, 43, a former teacher fired from her job by an emergency decree-law who passed away yesterday from multiple health problems, was hurriedly buried without giving her jailed husband the opportunity to attend her funeral, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.

In a tweet Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a prominent human rights activist and lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said Görmez was buried before the scheduled time, due to COVID-19 measures, despite not having contracted the virus. As a result her husband was unable to attend the funeral.

Fatma Görmez Konya’da toprağa verildi

Cenazeyi Covid bahanesiyle ilan edilen ikindiden önce toprağa vermişler!

Fatma hanım Covid değildi!

Anlaşılan cenazeye kimsenin katılmasını istememişler

Dirisine de ölüsüne de kimse yetişmesin istemişler!

Eşini de c.evinden getirmemişler pic.twitter.com/hVdN6voE4G

— Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu (@gergerliogluof) January 12, 2021

“Fatma was not a COVID patient. Apparently they didn’t want anyone to attend the funeral,” Gergerlioğlu said.

According to Bold Medya, Görmez had undergone a kidney transplant and two heart surgeries and had lost considerable weight, dropping to 29 kilos before she died. She was in intensive care in the final days of her life.

Görmez was an experienced primary school teacher who was summarily dismissed from her job and briefly detained over her alleged ties 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.

Fatma Görmez’s husband, Bekir Görmez, was arrested immediately after the coup attempt for alleged membership in the Gülen movement and has been in prison ever since. He worked for the Konya-based Mevlana University, one of 15 universities shut down by the Turkish government without any due process after the abortive putsch.

The couple’s son, Berk, succumbed to cancer in January 2018, and his father was only able to attend the funeral in handcuffs, surrounded by gendarmes. Images from the funeral were widely circulated on social media and caused an outcry from rights activists.

After her husband was arrested, Fatma Görmez had to take care of her sick son alone. She had applied for disability, but her application was rejected by the authorities because she had been purged by a government decree. The authorities did not take into account a medical report stating that she was almost totally disabled and not fit to work.

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. 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.

Görmez had shared a video on Twitter in July 2019 in which she said she was struggling under the pressure of her health problems and the loss of her child. “I have a 14-year-old daughter, and all I want is for my husband to be released and take care of her while I’m in the hospital,” she had said.

Görmez’s death caused an outcry among various segments of Turkish society. Prominent journalist Amberin Zaman in a tweet criticized the silence of the Turkish public about the human rights abuses faced by anyone with alleged ties to the Gülen movement.

Gülen cemaatiyle en ufak bağı olan herkesin tabiri caizse haşere muamelesine tabii tutulması ve bir çok “liberal” dahil toplumun genelinin bu durum karşısındaki suskunluğu üzerimizde biriken günahlar silsilesinin karanlık bir kilometre taşı olarak tarihte yerini alacaktır https://t.co/xF5R87M7NL

— Amberin Zaman (@amberinzaman) January 12, 2021

“The treatment of anyone with the slightest tie to the Gülen movement as if they were an insect and the silence of the general public [against this], including many ‘liberals,’ will go down in history as a dark milestone in the many sins that have been accumulating,” Zaman’s tweet reads.

Fatma Görmez.Geçen yıl evine 3 kez gitmiştim hatırlarsınız.Aslında Konya Başkent hastanesine yatırılışından sonra iyi olmuştu.Ama küçük çocuğunu kaybetmiş olması onda büyük sancıydı.Sevenlerinin başı sağolsun.Kızı tek kaldı ama bizler onun için elimizden geleni yapacağız. pic.twitter.com/MXGaTvyLXg

— Haluk Levent (@haluklevent) January 11, 2021

Famous rock star and philanthropist Haluk Levent also shared a condolence message from his Twitter account.Levent said, “Her daughter was left behind all alone, but we will do all that we can to help her.”

turkishminute

Russian Federation (RF) Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov recently stated that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was expected to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum to be convened from Thursday to Saturday, and along the lines of which it seems there will be a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Iravunk (Right) newspaper.“ as of yesterday, Yerevan had not yet announced that Pashinyan will leave for RF.“Conversations spread that [Azerbaijan President Ilham] Aliyev also will be in Saint Petersburg. And that put a start to other types of conversations that not only a Putin-Pashinyan [meeting] should now be awaited, but the Aliyev-Pashinyan meeting will follow it. And according to another hypothesis, it can also be with a trilateral format: Putin-Aliyev-Pashinyan,” Iravunk wrote.

The Turkish government continued to muzzle the press in 2020 in a variety of ways, including imprisoning journalists, eliminating media outlets, overseeing the purchase of media brands by pro-government conglomerates and using regulatory authorities to exert financial pressure.

Journalism is still associated with terrorism in Turkey, and journalistic work is used as evidence against journalists in the overwhelming majority of convictions. In most of the trials, the evidence is typically made up of social media posts, news stories, articles and TV broadcasts. According to the Stockholm Center for Freedom’s “Jailed and Wanted Journalists in Turkey” database, 175 journalists are behind bars and 167 are wanted and either in exile or at large. Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes Turkey as “the world’s biggest jailer of professional journalists.”

Yet, according to a report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), despite heavy censorship, two key trends undercut President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts to control the media landscape: “rising distrust toward the media and increasing fragmentation in the ways that Turks get their news.”

Cognizant of these trends, the Turkish government passed a Social Media Law, which came into force on October 1, that poses an immediate threat of extensive censorship of the Internet. This is particularly worrisome for — following the state-led takeover of the mainstream media –- social media platforms as well as online news sites, which remain among the last bastions of critical journalism in Turkey.

Even before the new law went into effect, Turkish police investigated 14,186 social media accounts in the first seven months of 2020, taking legal action against 6,743 of them on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda, inciting the public to hatred and enmity, instilling fear in and causing panic among the public or containing provocative content.

Here is some of the most important news from 2020 in the field of press freedom:

Jailed journalists die of cancer after belated release from prison

Journalist Mevlüt Öztaş, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer while in jail, died in July after his belated release from prison despite a medical report recommending it.

TV director Fatih Terzioğlu, 40, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer during his 21-month incarceration on terrorism charges, died in August following his release from prison in mid-July after an intensive social media campaign. More..

Turkish courts consider publishing leaked state documents an act of terrorism, sentence journalist Mehmet Baransu to a total of 36 years

A Mersin court that handed down a prison sentence of 19 years, six months to jailed investigative journalist Mehmet Baransu on three separate charges said in its reasoned decision that he had published classified information with “terror motives” and not for purposes of journalism.

Baransu was also sentenced to an additional 17 years by an İstanbul court in November for publishing leaked government documents. More..

European rights court rules Turkey violated rights of Turkish journalists

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that Turkey violated the right to liberty and security as well as the right to freedom of expression of journalist Ahmet Şık, who was kept in pre-trial detention for 14 months in Turkey.

The ECtHR made a similar ruling about a group of journalists and executives from the anti-government Cumhuriyet daily who stood trial on terrorism charges in the country. More..

Turkey fines social media giants for refusal to comply with controversial law

Turkey imposed a first round of fines, TL 30 million ($3.8 million) each, on social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for failing to comply with a new law. On November 4, the companies were slapped with a second round of fines of TL 10 million ($1.17 million) for the same reason. More…

News outlets critical of the government slapped with high and disproportionate fines

Turkey’s broadcasting watchdog, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), imposed fines on TV stations critical of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) totaling 25 times the amount it imposed on pro-government TV stations in 2020. RTÜK had received 102,500 complaints about the staunchly pro-government ATV in 2020; however, ATV was punished only twice, once with an administrative fine for violating laws protecting the family, and again as a warning for the inappropriate use of Turkish, the mildest form of RTÜK sanctions. In addition, RTÜK failed to process any of the complaints filed against pro-government TV stations A Haber, Kanal 7, TV Net and TGRT News in 2020 and did not impose any fines on them. More…

Turkish writer Ahmet Altan held in prison for over 1,500 days without a shred of credible evidence

The Turkish government has held novelist and journalist Ahmet Altan in İstanbul’s Silivri Prison for 1,500 days without a shred of credible evidence that he has committed any crime other than to express critical opinions, Emma Sinclair-Webb from Human Rights Watch said.

Altan topped the December ranking of the One Free Press Coalition’s “10 Most Urgent” list of press freedom cases, the organization announced in a press release. More..

Exiled journalist Can Dündar’s assets seized, gets 27 years in prison

Exiled journalist Can Dündar was handed down a 27-year, six-month prison sentence in a trial concerning a news report on National Intelligence Organization (MIT) trucks transporting arms to rebels in Syria.

The Özgürüz website, which is run by Dündar, was cut from access in Turkey by the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). A Turkish court also ruled to seized Dündar’s assets and declared him a fugitive in October. More…

Appeals court upholds life sentences for 4 defendants including journalist Karaca, former MP İşbilen

A regional court of appeals in Ankara has ruled to uphold the aggravated life sentences of four defendants — journalist Hidayet Karaca, former lawmaker İlhan İşbilen, Fethullah Gülen’s cousin Kazım Avcı and Alaeddin Kaya, former owner of the Zaman newspaper. More…

4 journalists arrested for reporting on Kurdish villagers allegedly thrown from military helicopter

Four journalists who reported on two Kurdish villagers who had allegedly been thrown out of a military helicopter were arrested in October. The villagers were in fact assaulted by a mob of more than 100 soldiers, a report by independent deputy and investigative journalist Ahmet Şık had later revealed. More..

Journalists convicted over reports on Turkish black op in Libya

A Turkish court in September convicted five journalists over their reports on a Turkish intelligence officer killed in Libya and sentenced them to more than three years in prison but released them pending appeal. More..

Exiled Turkish journalist attacked in Stockholm suburb

Sweden-based Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt was attacked yesterday near his home in Stockholm, hospitalizing him for injuries sustained. Bozkurt and his team of journalists in Sweden run Nordic Monitor news web site which provides exclusive and critical coverage on Turkey and exposes the clandestine activities of the notorious Turkish intelligence agency. More..

İstanbul court upholds prison sentences of journalists from Turkey’s pro-opposition Sözcü daily

The prison sentences of nine journalists from Turkey’s pro-opposition Sözcü daily who were charged with supporting the Gülen movement have been upheld by the İstanbul Regional Appeals Court. More..

Journalist Büşra Erdal denied release despite eligibility for parole

Journalist Büşra Erdal has been denied release from prison although she has been eligible for parole since March 30, according to Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a prominent human rights activist and a deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). More..

Turkish TV station closes down due to gov’t pressure 26 days after launch

Private Turkish television station Olay TV closed down on December 25, only 26 days after it started broadcasting, due to intense pressure from Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. More..

Female journalists in Turkey face discrimination and harassment at work, says media association

Female journalists in Turkey face problems at work, ranging from unequal pay to sexual harassment, most frequently seen in local media outlets, according to a report by the Media Research Association (MEDAR). More..

Turkish gov’t uses TRT as a weapon to spread its censorship to YouTube

After taking full control of traditional media, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan began silencing dissenting voices on YouTube through Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT, which abused the platform’s community guidelines and copyright policy to secure the closure of dozens of channels and the removal of thousands of videos. More..

Germany has designated Turkey’s pro-government think-tank, the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) as a front organisation that promotes Ankara’s views under the name of science and research in Europe, DW Turkish reported on Friday.

In response to a parliamentary question from the Free Democrat Party (FDP) regarding Turkey’s intelligence and lobbying activities, the German federal government said SETA seeks to influence public opinion and shape the political debate in European through its activities and publications.

The German government said a SETA report published in 2019 served to pressure the Turkish government’s opponents, DW added.

A 2019 SETA report titled: “The Turkey extensions of international media organisations,” included detailed information on journalists at foreign news outlets in Turkey, complete with past employment and social media posts.

The report analysed foreign news outlets’ coverage of the July 2016 coup attempt and the Turkish government’s subsequent crackdown, as well as Turkey’s cross-border operations in neighbouring Syria and elsewhere, linking perceived falsehoods to the journalists’ personal histories and alleged biases.

Both Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have sought to expand their activities in Germany after the failed coup, with the Islamist and nationalist groups close to the AKP trying to increase their impact within the public sphere, the German government said, according to DW.

The German government added that such groups are seeeking to enter German politics by nominating candidates in local elections. SETA opened a representative office in Berlin in 2017, and the religious-nationalist movement Milli Görüş (National Vision) was indirectly represented in the German Islam Conference through the Islamic Council Association, DW said.

Berlin also expressed concerns over the activities of the Grey Wolves, a ultranationalist movement linked to the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Turkey, DW said.

In November, the German parliament passed a motion calling for the the Grey Wolves to be banned following a similar move in France. But DW said the German interior ministry had decided not to act on the issue at this stage, pointing to legal obstacles involved in banning associations.

In answering a previous parliamentary question on SETA’s activities and financial resources in 2019, the German government described the the think-tank as a pro-Turkish government organisation financed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law, former Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak’s family.

The FDP parliamentary group’s deputy chairman Stephan Thomae said the German government had reached the end of its patience with Turkey’s efforts to establish diplomatic influence in Germany and was gradually abandoning the cautious approach taken in the past, according to DW.

SETA foundation also has a representative office in Washington D.C.

Writing on social media, Sinan Ciddi, associate professor of national security studies at the Marine Corps University in Virginia, said U.S. authorities should follow the German example with SETA’s Washington counterpart.

The German govt has designated Turkish organization, SETA, as a ‘front’, disseminating pro-Erdogan propaganda. US authorities should follow suit with its Washington counterpart, @SETADC. This propaganda shop has long been the main beacon of Erdoganism in the US. https://t.co/SA3c26XhjW

— Sinan Ciddi (he/him) (@SinanCiddi) January 9, 2021

Nusret Muğla, 84, who suffers from multiple health problems, was arrested on Wednesday after the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld a previous conviction that was based on politically motivated charges, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported citing Bold Medya.

Speaking to Bold Medya immediately before his arrest, Muğla said he had heart disease, high blood pressure, prostate cancer and renal and balance problems. He said he took 14 different medications every day and could barely walk. According to Muğla, his son took care of his daily needs as he was unable to leave the house.

Muğla was arrested in October 2016 for alleged membership to the Gülen movement and underwent an angiography during his time in jail. He was released for health reasons seven months later but was subsequently sentenced to six years, three months in prison.

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.

According to a statement from Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu on November 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 since the failed coup. The minister said there are currently 25,655 people in Turkey’s prisons who were jailed due to links to the Gülen movement.

The purge has resulted in a drastic increase of political prisoners in Turkish prisons, some of whom are severely ill.

According to the Human Rights Association (İHD), there are more than 1,605 sick prisoners in Turkish prisons, approximately 604 of whom are critically ill. Although most of the seriously ill patients have forensic and medical reports deeming them unfit to remain in prison, they are not released. Authorities refuse to release them on the grounds that they pose a potential danger to society. In the first eight months of 2020, five critically ill prisoners passed away because they were not released in time to receive proper medical treatment.

Since April 2020, four seriously ill prisoners over the age of 70 have died in penal institutions; five inmates suffering from cancer died shortly after they were released; and 16 died of chronic illnesses while imprisoned.

Journalist Şahin Alpay’s ongoing house arrest continues to violate his right to liberty and security, Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday, Turkish media reported.

The court said Alpay’s release from prison only to be put under house arrest was a gross violation of his liberties. It said house arrest requires the precondition of a strong sign of criminal activity, which was not met in Alpay’s case and that he should be paid TL 20,000 ($2,700) in non-pecuniary damages.

Alpay, a veteran journalist and columnist for the now-closed Zaman and Today’s Zaman dailies, was jailed in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016, over his alleged links to the Gülen movement and on allegations of “attempting to overthrow the government.”

On January 11, 2018 the Constitutional Court had ruled that Alpay’s pre-trial detention violated his rights to liberty and security, freedom of expression and freedom of the press and ordered the trial court to put an end to the violations cited.

However, both the trial court and a court of first instance authorized to review the objections rejected numerous petitions filed by Alpay’s lawyers requesting his release in accordance with the Constitutional Court judgment. Upon the trial court’s failure to implement the high court judgment, Alpay’s lawyers lodged a new application with the Constitutional Court.

On March 16, 2018 the Constitutional Court ruled that the trial court’s failure to implement its earlier judgment violated Alpay’s right to liberty and security under Article 19 of the Constitution and ordered Alpay’s immediate release. Based on the Constitutional Court’s second judgment, the trial court ruled for Alpay’s release from prison but ordered that he be placed under house arrest. Alpay was released from Silivri Prison in the early hours of March 17, 2018.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) announced on March 20, 2018  that Alpay’s arrest was a violation of personal liberty and security under Article 5/1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and of freedom of expression under Article 10.

Alpay was eventually sentenced to eight years, nine months in prison on July 6, 2018 and has remained under house arrest.

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 that he accused Gülen of masterminding.

According to the Stockholm Center for Freedom’s “Jailed and Wanted Journalists in Turkey” database, 175 journalists are behind bars and 167 are wanted and either in exile or at large. Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes Turkey as “the world’s biggest jailer of professional journalists.”

Cases of human rights violations in Turkey in December included 43 deaths and 240 incidents of torture and maltreatment, with 143 of them taking place in prisons, a report drafted by Sezgin Tanrıkulu, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), revealed on Friday.

The report by Tanrıkulu, a prominent human rights activist and deputy chair of a parliamentary committee on human rights, said 23 women, two refugees and an inmate were among those whose right to life was violated last month.

Regarding violations of freedom of speech, the MP’s monthly report showed that investigations were launched into two members of the press, while eight journalists were detained and nine more were either given prison sentences or fines.

Turkish authorities in December blocked access to a total of 1,342 URLs, which included links to critical media outlets such as the T24, Diken and Gazete Duvar news websites and the Cumhuriyet daily website.

Thirteen people were detained, two were arrested and five were either given prison sentences or levied fines due to expressing their views critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.

The authorities launched investigations into 35 social media users, detained 13 and arrested one in December, while the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Dec. 22 that social media posts mentioning strip-searches in Turkey’s prisons were also being investigated.

Allegations of strip-search in Turkish prisons and detention centers were first brought to public attention by Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a prominent human rights activist and lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), over a report that 30 female students who were detained in Uşak on alleged terror links were strip-searched before admission to a detention facility in late August.

Following the move, which prompted scores of women as well as men to share on social media their experiences of strip-searches, several senior members of the AKP government denied the practice and branded Gergerlioğlu a “terrorist.”

The report further revealed that hundreds of political party, municipality and nongovernmental organization chairs and members, the majority of them from the pro-Kurdish HDP, were detained, and at least 13 were arrested last month. Five of them received prison sentences in December, while three others were released by a court.

Turkish police intervened in at least 18 demonstrations, public press statements and assemblies last month, detaining at least 85 people and arresting two among those who attended the events. At least three similar events were banned by provincial and district governors’ offices, and a number of people were reportedly sentenced to pay administrative fines for attending protests during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two Turkish teachers who were detained in the Ukrainian city of Rava-Ruska on New Year’s Day have been deported to Turkey by Ukrainian authorities despite anger on social media against their potential removal, according to a statement from the Turkish Interior Ministry on Wednesday.

The reaction on social media was due to the fact that the teachers, who were working at schools in Iraq affiliated with the Gülen movement, a faith-based group accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup in July 2016 despite a strong denial from the movement, would most certainly face persecution in Turkey.

The teachers, Salih Fidan and Samet Güre, traveled to Kyiv 51 days ago to make their way to Europe to seek asylum because their Turkish passports were about to expire and they feared Turkish authorities would not renew them. They recently went to Rava-Ruska near Lviv, close to the Polish border, where they were detained by Ukrainian police on Dec. 31 among a crowd of people celebrating the new year. They were accused of entering Ukraine illegally despite the fact that the teachers entered the country with legal travel documents, according to a report on the ukraynahaber news website, which had interviewed the two teachers.

The teachers had to file asylum applications at the Ukrainian office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to avoid their deportation but were deported before the asylum process was completed after Turkish Embassy officials in Kyiv reportedly took action to facilitate their return to Turkey. Despite the anger on social media, the teachers were forced to board a plane to İstanbul on the evening of Jan. 5 and were flown to Turkey.

According to a statement from the Turkish Interior Ministry on Wednesday morning, the teachers are being questioned at the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office’s terror crimes department.

They are accused of depositing money in Bank Asya, a now-closed Islamic lender affiliated with the Gülen movement, following the corruption investigations of 2013 in which the inner circle of then Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was implicated.

Following these investigations, called a “coup attempt” by Erdoğan and his government, a crackdown was launched on Gülen movement members that culminated with the coup attempt of 2016. The Gülen movement denies any involvement in the corruption investigations as well.

The names of the teachers were also reportedly mentioned in the depositions of some people who were prosecuted on terrorism charges due to their alleged Gülen links and wanted to benefit from the so-called “effective repentance” law.

Since the coup attempt, followers of the Gülen movement have been subjected to a massive crackdown, with the Turkish government and pro-government media outlets demonizing its members.

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 since the failed coup. The minister said there are currently 25,655 people in Turkey’s prisons who were jailed due to links to the Gülen movement.

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

A new allegation of enforced disappearance in Turkey emerged at the beginning of 2021 as Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit, a former civil servant dismissed from his job due to alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, was reported missing.

His daughter, Nursena Küçüközyiğit, has been trying to lodge a criminal complaint saying he was abducted on Dec. 29. However, authorities in the northwestern city of Kocaeli, notably the public prosecutor’s office and the police department, did not receive the complaint, according to a report by Bold Medya.

Küçüközyiğit was one of some 130,000 people purged from the civil service after an abortive military coup in July 2016 for their purported ties to the Gülen group, which the Turkish government accused of having orchestrated the failed putsch.

The disappearance

Küçüközyiğit last spoke by phone to his daughter Nursena on Dec. 29 at around 3:30 p.m. about their new year’s plans. His coworkers were the last people to have seen him. About 4 p.m. he left his colleagues to visit a friend in Ankara’s Gölbaşı district, taking off from an office facing the Maltepe Mosque in a Mazda 323 with license plate 34 FNF 28. His cell phone stopped receiving signals at 4:23 pm.

Nursena Küçüközyiğit says her father was unemployed for a long time after being expelled from public service and was held in detention for six months for his alleged Gülen links. After he was released, he set up a business to offer legal advice to other purged public sector workers, which Nursena believes might have been the reason her father was abducted.

‘Black Transporter incidents’

Post-coup enforced disappearances are known in Turkey as “Black Transporter incidents,” referring to the black Volkswagen Transporter vans that were involved in many of the cases in which there were eyewitnesses or family members managed to acquire security camera footage of the abductions.

According to opposition MP and prominent human rights defender Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, enforced disappearances are the most concerning human rights violations that have occurred since the failed coup, convinced by the accounts given by some of the victims who resurfaced months after they went missing. Some have spoken out in court, recounting the systematic and severe torture they were subjected to during their secret interrogation by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), Turkey’s main intelligence agency, which victims said waited until their wounds had healed to hand them over to the police. Of nearly 30 people abducted since the attempted coup, three remain unaccounted for.

Nursena thinks her father was yet another victim of the notorious black vans and is worried that he might be tortured for months. She says they have filed criminal complaints with the police and the prosecutor’s office and that they will also notify the Human Rights Association (İHD), the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights. Nursena insists that her father has a brilliant career and that he has done nothing wrong.

Nursena launched the Twitter account @NeredeBabam (Where is my father) on which she started to campaign about her father’s disappearance. She says she had heard her father talk about abducted individuals in the past and that she cannot even stand reading about the gruesome experiences of those who disappeared.

Police silent

Nursena says they have repeatedly called the police, who simply say, “We are unable to provide any information.” Families of other victims were also faced with the same attitude by the police, who were reluctant to investigate and collect evidence. Relatives of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, another former civil servant who was reported missing in August 2019, had tried unsuccessfully for three months to have the authorities conduct a fingerprint search on Tunç’s vehicle. The United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances in its reports emphasized that the Turkish authorities were not pursuing the necessary investigative tracks.

Exiled journalist Can Dündar interprets the officials’ silence as proof of the state’s involvement. “They are silent because they are unable to say ‘We did it’,” Dündar says.

A promising bureaucrat

Küçüközyiğit is a graduate of one of the country’s most prestigious law schools, at Ankara University. He also holds a master’s degree from Germany and after his studies was appointed as European Union coordinator at the Turkish National Agency. He was a legal adviser for the then-prime ministry when he was removed from his job in August 2016.

The ranch: MİT’s torture center

According to the testimony of some of the victims, the abductees are being taken to the MİT’s special operations center known as “the ranch” (çiftlik in Turkish). In 2016 and 2017, some of the victims were first held at MİT’s headquarters in the Yenimahalle district of Ankara before they were transferred to the ranch. The secret interrogation center was rebuilt shortly before the July 2016 coup attempt, and reports said Gülen-linked abductees as well as Kurds brought from Syria were being interrogated under torture there.

Victims Ayten Öztürk and Zabit Kişi, who were abducted from abroad, were taken to a different location by MİT’s external operations unit. In a MİT-operated sports complex called the Saray Facilities, which is located on road to Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport, Öztürk and Kişi were subjected to severe torture.

In addition to Öztürk and Kişi, Gökhan Türkmen, Yasin Ugan, Mesut Geçer, Önder Asan and Ümit Horzum also recounted in court their months-long brutal interrogation.

Abductees

While the victims often remained unheard from for months, some were ultimately handed over to the police. Some of the abductees remain missing. Sunay Elmas, Ayhan Oran and Yusuf Bilge Tunç are still unaccounted for. Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit now has been added to the list.

 

Full list

Sunay Elmas – January 27, 2016

Ayhan Oran – November 1, 2016

Mustafa Özgür Gültekin – December 21, 2016

Durmuş Ali Çetin – May 17, 2017

Hüseyin Kötüce – February 28, 2017

Mesut Geçer – March 26, 2017

Turgut Çapan – March 31, 2017

Önder Asan – April 1, 2017

Cengiz Usta – April 4, 2017

Mustafa Özben – May 9, 2017

Fatih Kılıç – May 14, 2017

Cemil Koçak – June 5, 2017

Murat Okumuş – June 16, 2017

Enver Kılıç – September 30, 2017

Zabit Kişi – September 30, 2017

Hıdır Çelik – December 6, 2017

Ümit Horzm – December 6, 2017

Ayten Öztürk – March 13, 2018

Orçun Şenyücel – April 21, 2018

Hasan Kala – July 20, 2018

Fahri Mert – August 12, 2018

Ahmet Ertürk – November 16, 2018

Gökhan Türkmen – February 7, 2019

Yasin Ugan – February 12, 2019

Özgür Kaya – February 12, 2019

Erkan Irmak – February 16, 2019

Mustafa Yılmaz – February 18, 2019

Salim Zeybek – February 20, 2019

Yusuf Bilge Tunç – August 6, 2019

Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit – December 29, 2020

Nesibe Baransu, the wife of Turkish journalist Mehmet Baransu, who has been behind bars for more than five years, on Tuesday told the Jailed Journos online platform about the difficulties she faced in the years following her husband’s arrest due to being considered “legally disabled” — a term indicating that she is unable to exercise her rights as a citizen — by the Turkish government.

Baransu said she was unable to pay six months of taxes when her house was seized by the government because the workers at the tax office considered her legally disabled. She added that her being considered legally disabled at different government offices because of her husband’s arrest in 2015 had continued for four years.

“The officers [at the tax office] told me they saw a red warning on the computer screen, sent from the Justice Ministry, when they put my ID number in the system, telling them those officers who allow me to conduct an official procedure there would face legal action,” she said.

“When I asked them, ‘Is there a criminal investigation into me?’ they replied that there wasn’t. I asked, ‘Then, why am I legally disabled?’ and they said that it was because of my husband’s situation. But is there any reason for it? No, there isn’t,” Baransu said.

“People who have family members behind bars feel as if they are also jailed in a semi-open prison. I’m one of those who feel this way because of the fact that I can’t work even though I have a profession,” Baransu told Jailed Journos.

She further said that she was unable to get health insurance when she was experiencing health problems.

“I can’t understand why I can’t benefit from a service provided by the government when I am as much a citizen of this country as anybody else. I’m not under arrest, I haven’t been convicted of any crime and there isn’t any investigation or charges against me,” the journalist’s wife said.

Criticizing the lack of judicial independence in Turkey, Baransu said the court on several occasions rejected evidence that might help to prove her husband’s innocence, also refusing to hear to her statement about irregularities in her husband’s indictment.

Mehmet Baransu, who was arrested in March 2015, was sentenced to 19 years, six months on four counts over his 2013 reporting for the Taraf daily on alleged customs fraud involving the import of genetically modified rice by a pro-government businessman, which he claimed was hushed up by then-Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In November, he was also sentenced to 17 years, one month on four other charges due to his report in 2013 on a National Security Council (MGK) decision concerning government plans to eliminate the faith-based Gülen movement, which is labeled as a terrorist organization by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.

Ankara also accuses the movement, inspired by the teachings of the US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, of masterminding a 2016 coup attempt despite both Gülen and his supporters’ strong denial of any involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activities.