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  • Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt are ‘Devil’s Triangle’ working with enemies of Islam, says Erdoğan’s chief cleric

    By Abdullah Bozkurt-nordicmonitor

    Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt comprise the “Devil’s Triangle,” said Hayrettin Karaman, chief fatwa (religious edict) giver for Turkish President Recep Tayyip and a leading ideologue for the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood.

    Writing for the pro-Iran Yeni Şafak daily on May 5, 2019, Karaman lashed out at all three countries as well as Bahrain for designating the Muslim Brotherhood’s International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS) as a terrorist entity. Karaman, an 84-year-old professor who is  called the Turkish version of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, was elected vice president of IAMS at a major convention held in Turkey in November 2018.

     

    Karaman described IAMS as an organization that endeavors to liberate Muslims in Islamic countries from oppressive dictators who seized power and are servants of the enemies of Islam. In a previous article he wrote on May 3, 2019, Karaman accused Egypt, Saudi Arabia and some Gulf States of helping realize the plans of Israel and the United States for the Islamic world including handing over Palestine to the Jewish state and assassinating those who oppose their plans. He claimed that US President Donald Trump has been deceived by his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, about the Brotherhood, which the US leader is prepared to designate a terrorist organization.

     

     

    In fact, this radical cleric endorsed torture and ill treatment in Turkey in an article he wrote on February 2, 2017 in which he said that “no punishment can be imposed on soldiers who committed lesser crimes while fighting.” He was referring wide-scale and credible allegations of torture, abuse and ill treatment in detention centers and prisons in Turkey following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The column coincided with reports of international watchdogs including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch along with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture that confirmed the abuse and torture.

    He has continued to be an outspoken advocate of the mass persecution in Turkey under the Erdoğan regime that has resulted in the dismissal of close to 150,000 government employees without any effective judicial or administrative probes. The Gülen movement, led by US-based liberal Islamic thinker Fethullah Gülen, has borne the brunt of the massive crackdown by the Erdoğan government. Karaman wrote a number of columns that claimed Gülen followers had betrayed the authorities and therefore the abusive treatment inflicted on them by the government was justice and not persecution.

    Karaman, an anti-Western cleric, drew criticism when he advocated the view that the Erdoğan government must acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) including nuclear weapons to deter the West and have them manufactured in Turkey. He wrote in a column published on March 16, 2017, “We need to consider producing these weapons rather than purchasing them without losing any time and with no regard to words [of caution] or hindrance from the West.” Karaman claimed the West was interfering in the Islamic world in general and in Turkey in particular through its economic and military powers. He added that the West, including the US, accumulated wealth by exploiting the East, shedding blood and destroying Eastern values.

    The cleric is among those who promote Erdoğan as the leader of all Muslims, or caliph, and he has pushed the idea of absolute obedience to the Erdoğan regime for Muslims as many followers of the Turkish president have been led to believe that Erdoğan is the expected savior and the only Muslim leader who can stand up to the West, crusaders and Israel. In an article in Yeni Şafak, a pro-Erdoğan Islamist newspaper, on December 25, 2015, Karaman argued that “the presidential system is like the Islamic caliphate system in which the people elect the president [caliph/ruler], then all pledge allegiance [biyat] to him.” He claimed that defying Erdoğan is against Islam and that the Muslim faith requires believers to cast their votes for him in elections.

     

  • Turkish bar association claims 38 detainees in Halfeti subjected to ill treatment, torture

    The Şanlıurfa Bar Association claimed that 38 people who were detained on Monday were subjected to ill treatment and torture, the Evrensel daily reported.

    One police officer died in a skirmish with outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants on May 18 in the Halfeti district of Şanlıurfa. Following the incident police accused some residents of helping the terrorist group.

    Police operations on Monday drew criticism on social media from human rights defenders as some photos showed that the detainees were handcuffed from behind and laid down on the ground side by side.

    The Şanlurfa Bar Association’s Human Rights Center on Tuesday reported that the detainees were subjected to ill treatment and torture during interrogation and forced under duress to sign false testimonies.

    According to the Mezopotamya news agency, detainee Mehmet Alakuş admitted in testimony submitted to the prosecutor’s office that he had helped the terrorists.

    Later his lawyers told the agency that Alakuş was forced to sign the false testimony and threatened with harm to his family.

    Some lawyers also claimed that the suspects were prohibited from seeing a doctor. The Şanlıurfa Chief Public Prosecutor’s office denied the claims of ill treatment and torture.

  • Turkey orders detention of 61 in post-coup crackdown targeting Gülen movement

    Turkish prosecutors on Friday ordered the detention of 61 people, including military members, as part of a massive post-coup crackdown targeting faith-based Gülen movement followers.

    The Erdoğan government accuses the movement of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt, although it strongly denies any involvement.

    The İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention warrants for 20 military members over Gülen links, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

    The report said 17 of the suspects are on active duty, while three were suspended in administrative investigations.

    The prosecutor accused the suspects of using pay phones to maintain their alleged ties with the Gülen movement.

    The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office also issued detention warrants for 29 people on allegations of Gülen links.

    The suspects are accused of using ByLock, a smartphone application that was believed to have been used among Gülen movement followers.

    Meanwhile police in Samsun detained 14 people, including soldiers, former public servants, doctors and students, after the issuance of detention warrants for 12 people on suspicion of Gülen links.

    According to the report two suspects sought by the prosecutor in another investigation were also taken into custody.

    Over half a million people have been subjected to prosecution for alleged membership in the Gülen movement, according to the Justice Ministry.

    Large-scale detentions have been ongoing for the last three years.

  • Australians vote in closely-fought federal election

    Australians are voting in a federal election on Saturday that bookmakers predict will return the Labor Party to power after six years in opposition.

    A victory would put Labor leader Bill Shorten on course to become the country’s next prime minister, following a campaign in which he highlighted climate change and tax reform.

    “I am nervous because it’s a big day, it’s a very big deal,” Shorten said on Saturday. “But I’m confident that we have done the homework.”

    His rival is the current prime minister Scott Morrison. His conservative Liberal-National coalition has held power since 2013, but has struggled in the opinion polls over concerns about instability and party infighting.Voting is compulsory across the country, meaning a high proportion of the 17 million eligible voters is expected to turn out for this election.

    But the polls also indicated Morrison narrowed Labor’s lead during the campaign, even though many voters are still angry about the ousting of his socially moderate predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, in a backbench revolt last August.

    Turnbull was the second prime minister to be ousted while in office by the ruling Liberal Party amid deep divisions over climate and energy policy.And while polls show most Australians support stronger action to tackle climate change, Morrison’s coalition strongly supports the coal industry.

    Morrison has pledged to meet Australia’s commitment under the Paris Accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 26% and 28% on 2005 levels, but says more ambitious targets would damage the economy.

    Shorten said that, if elected, his government would aim to cut emissions by 45% by 2030.

    Polling stations will close first in the more populous east of the country, two hours before voting ends in Western Australia.

  • Turkey to build 43 prisons using funds from inmate labor

    Turkey’s Ministry of Justice is poised to build 43 new prisons using funds provided by its department responsible for generating income through inmate labor, the Sözcü newspaper reported on Thursday.

    This new group of prisons will be constructed in addition to the 48 others previously revealed to be underway, which are planned to occupy 6 million square meters of land and use some $1.5 billion in ministry funds.

    The 43 new prisons will cost the ministry a notably lower amount of about $650,000 as it will partly rely on revenue generated by the ministry’s Department of Workshops, which puts inmates to work in various areas such as agriculture, animal husbandry, textiles, handcrafts and manufacturing.

    In 2018 the department allocated nearly 40 percent of its revenue to the construction of prisons, with the number of inmates recruited to work topping 58,595 by the end of the year.

    The government announced 166 new correctional facilities between 2006 and 2019. Now it plans to spend some $2 billion to introduce 91 new ones by 2021.

    According to March 2019 figures from Turkey’s Directorate General of Prisons and Houses of Detention, Turkey has a total of 396 penal institutions with a capacity to accommodate some 220,000 people. Minister of Justice Abdülhamit Gül stated, however, that there were 260,144 people in prison as of November 2018.

  • Labor’s cuts to tax concessions to save $154b over a decade, policy costings to be unveiled today

    Labor will today release its policy costings, which are expected to outline $154 billion in savings to the budget over a decade, due to its contentious tax changes.

    The Opposition’s plans to curb negative gearing, capital gains tax concessions and dividend imputation have been a central battle in the federal election campaign.

    Labor will set out how those changes and a crackdown on multinational tax avoidance would allow it to fund spending promises on education and health care, while also bringing the budget back into surplus.

    The ABC understands Labor’s costings will show it intends to match the Coalition’s surplus this coming financial year, but promise a quicker reduction of debt.

    “We will show bigger budget surpluses over the forward estimates and the medium-term, achieving a surplus of 1 per cent of GDP by 2022-23, four years earlier than the current Government trajectory,” Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said.”Labor has consistently said further tax relief can be prudently provided when the budget is back in healthy surplus, if the economic and fiscal circumstances allow — that is reflected in Labor’s final fiscal plan.”

    Get key political stories and analysis straight to your inbox, including special election coverage from Annabel Crabb.

    Speaking on RN Breakfast, Mr Bowen committed a Labor government to a $7.5 billion surplus in 2019-20 if elected next week.

    He projected a $13 billion surplus in 2020-21, $2 billion more than the Coalition’s forecasted $11 billion surplus.

    The Shadow Treasurer conceded voters could be surprised that his party was projecting larger surpluses than the Coalition.

    “I accept it’s unusual, perhaps historically, for the Labor Party to go to an election promising bigger budget surpluses,” Mr Bowen said.

    “But it’s right for the times because we do believe that the economy needs a bigger buffer.

    “We need a fighting fund for the economy.”

    The Coalition has described Labor’s key policies as tax hikes, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison repeatedly warning of the economic consequences of a Labor government.

    He said it had taken the Coalition six years to repair the budget from when Labor was last in power.

    “We’re getting the budget back into surplus for next year,” the Prime Minister told the ABC.

    “We’ve done that not by raising taxes, but by getting spending under control.

    “Labor can’t manage money and when you can’t manage money you can’t run the country and you always end up spending more than you save.”

    But Mr Bowen will use his party’s costings to argue households are paying $18,600 on average each year to fund the tax concessions.

    “There is a first– and second-class tax system in Australia,” Mr Bowen said.

    “If you have access to good advice and your income comes through family trusts, if you have the ability and means to maximise your concessions, then you get first-class treatment.

    “If you are a normal pay-as-you-go worker then you pay very close to the headline tax rate.”

    In previous election campaigns, opposition parties have released policy costings only a couple of days before polling day, but this time Labor is releasing the details eight days before the May 18 poll.abc news

  • Childcare provider Red Roses Family Day Care allegedly filed claims for children who never existed

    A childcare provider allegedly filed claims for non-existent children and bought the identities of parents as a way to defraud millions of dollars from the Federal Government.

    According to its website, Red Roses Family Day Care — which has locations in Sydney and Wollongong — promised to provide “high-quality, home-care options for children between the ages of birth to 12 years”.

    But the family-run company allegedly made fraudulent claims worth up to $5 million from Government childcare programs, including the Commonwealth’s Child Care Subsidy Scheme (CCSS).

    Red Roses Family Day Care allegedly filed claims for children who never existed and investigators NSW Police are now pursuing up to 150 parents who allegedly sold their children’s identities to help the company qualify for the subsidies.

    “There are over 150 parents laying claim in terms of rebate, what we’ve taken out yesterday are the professional facilitators behind his syndicate,” NSW Police Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said.

    The ABC understand the business existed on paper, but no child ever went into care at any of the properties.

    “The [child] identities were legitimate it’s just there wasn’t any physical evidence of anyone being looked after,” Acting Assistant Commissioner Smith said.

    Police said some of the men and women charged over the alleged scam were preparing to target the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

    One of the “childcare centres” that supposedly looked after 50 children was operating out of a garage, police said.

    Yesterday, NSW Police arrested 18 people over their alleged involvement in the scam — so far 17 have been charged.

    “Strike force Mercury will continue in its investigations and we won’t rule out further arrests,” Acting Assistant Commissioner Smith said.

    The company’s director, Alee Farman, 49, was among 15 women and three men who were arrested yesterday during raids stretching from Fairfield to Wollongong in relation to the alleged syndicate.

    Police said Mr Farman was originally from Iraq and became an Australian citizen in 2007.

    Police said one woman arrested yesterday had $35,000 cash in her handbag, despite claiming Centrelink benefits.

    The means-tested scheme was designed to help reduce the financial burden placed on low and middle-income families paying for childcare.

    Subsidies are generally paid to childcare providers, who are required to pass them on to parents as a fee reduction.

    Families then make a co-contribution to their childcare fees, paying the provider the difference between the fee charged and the subsidy amount.

    The CCSS previously existed under different names before last July.

    The company made around $4 million in rebates over eight months — the company director reportedly took home around $30,000 a fortnight.

    Acting Assistant Commissioner Smith said some vulnerabilities had been identified in Government systems.

    “There are vulnerabilities that we have found during the investigation,” he said.

    Detectives and tactical officers targeted more than 22 properties when they turned up at homes across Greenacre, Fairfield, Bass Hill, Chester Hill and Georges Hall, and at a property near Wollongong.

    A source close to the investigation told the ABC the group’s activities were at the level of sophistication “that could only be likened to the highest level of organised crime”.

    The major investigation involved the Financial Crimes and Organised Crime Squad, along with the Federal Department of Education and Training, the Australian Intelligence Commission and the NSW Department of Education.

    Inquiries into the alleged scam have been ongoing for almost a year, with childcare providers now under the microscope of detectives.

  • Wife, daughter of purge victim who died of cancer detained

    Turkish police on Tuesday detained the wife and daughter of Associate Professor Ahmet Turan Özcerit, who was removed from his job, jailed and died of cancer in the wake of a failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016.

    The reasons for the detention of Esra Özcerit, a housewife, and daughter Senanur Özcerit, a university student, in the northwestern Turkish province of Sakarya were unknown.

    Özcerit’s son, Sinan, a student at Bilkent University in Ankara, announced the news from his Twitter account on Tuesday morning and said there were actually 18 detentions in Sakarya on Tuesday and that friends of his sister, who are foreigners, were among the detainees.

    “When my father passed away, you disturbed us by sending police to our home while we were mourning. Now, you detain my sister’s foreign friends just because she invited them to our home for a fast-breaking dinner. We have already been burned and are burning. Will you burn everyone who touches us?” tweeted son Özcerit.

    Ahmet Turan Özcerit was among the thousands of civil servants who were removed from their jobs by the Turkish government due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement following the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. He was a faculty member of Sakarya University’s computer engineering department.

    The Turkish government accuses the movement of masterminding the failed coup and terrorism, although the movement strongly denies any involvement.

    Özcerit, who was subsequently jailed, was diagnosed with cancer while in prison and was only released when the cancer reached an advanced stage. He was kept in pre-trial detention for 13 months and died in February 2018.

  • Turkey cancels press accreditation of 682 journalists in 4 months

    The Turkish government cancelled 682 press cards between November and March, Deutsche Welle Turkish service reported on Thursday.

    According to the report there were 15,423 permanent press card holders and 5,709 yellow, or temporary, press card holders in November 2018. In March 2019, these figures fell to 14,759 and 5,691, respectively.

    New regulations made it harder to obtain accreditation, which is necessary for both domestic and foreign journalists to be able to participate in official press briefings at the presidency, parliament and other government agencies.

    Furthermore, foreign journalists need press cards in order to obtain residence permits and may have to leave the country if their accreditation is canceled.

    Vague clauses such as “behavior that goes against the public order” were inserted in the regulations as grounds for cancellation along with many provisions from the Turkish Penal Code.

    After the introduction of a presidential system of governance last year, the government agency that receives and handles press card applications was put under presidential jurisdiction and was renamed the “Directorate of Communications.”

    Its authority was also extended in that it now has the ability to deny press cards even to journalists who fulfill all the criteria in the regulations.

    Veysel Ok, founder and co-director of the Media and Law Studies Association (MLSA), has challenged the provision at the Council of State as being in contravention of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

    Speaking to DW, Ok said that press cards are used by the Turkish government as a manipulative tool to further pressure journalists.

    He also pointed out that the government’s narrative against criticism relative to press freedom hinges on accreditation in the sense that only those who have press cards are considered to be journalists.

    “In their statements abroad they claim that there are no imprisoned journalists because no one with a press card is under arrest,” Ok said.

    Many journalists, writers and cartoonists who face terrorism-related charges for their critical publications risk having their press cards revoked.

    Turkey has become the largest jailer of journalists in the world according to several international rights groups, including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) since a 2016 coup attempt that gave President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government increased authority to use counterterrorism laws against journalists.

  • AKP municipality in northwestern Turkey spends $ 1.4 million on flowers in 2018

    A municipality run by the ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey’s northwestern province of Kocaeli purchased flowers worth 8.6 million liras ($ 1.4 million) in 2018, opposition newspaper Sözcü reported on Saturday.

    “The topic we are most concentrated on is just what the municipality of Kartepe did with 8.6 million liras worth of flowers and where they sent them,’’ Sözcü quoted main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Group Deputy Chairman Hasan Bayrak as saying regarding the expenditure that caused a stir during 2018 budget debates.

    The expenditures of AKP municipalities have come under the spotlight and drawn criticism after the Islamist party lost five of Turkey’s most populous provinces to the main opposition CHP in the March 31 local elections. Critics maintain the latest local polls were the AKP’s greatest electoral defeat in its 17 years in power.

    Kartepe’s AKP Deputy Mayor Mehmet Filiz released a statement following the report on flower expenditures, indicating an error had been made in municipal records.

    “An expenditure for 245 single roses purchased for an event at 3.54 ($ 0.58) liras per unit, was reported as 3540 liras ($ 584) per unit,’’ Filiz said, indicating an erroneous calculation.

    CHP dismissed the explanation as the AKP deputy mayor’s attempt to cover up the incident, pointing to many abnormalities in other spendings by the municipality of Kartepe.