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The German Federal Police have warned Hasip Kaplan, a former lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), of a planned assassination targeting him based on a hit list that includes the names of 55 critics of the Turkish government living in exile.

“The German police called me and said my name is on an assassination list. I told them that my name has been there for 40 years so it’s not anything new,” Kaplan tweeted on Sunday.

Kaplan, also a lawyer, served in the Turkish Parliament from 2007 to 2018 under the banner of pro-Kurdish parties, the last being the HDP. Kaplan has been living in exile in Germany amid an ongoing crackdown on Kurdish politicians in Turkey.

Earlier this month, a pro-government social media account named “Jitemkurt” published a list of Turkish journalists living in Europe and North America whom they plan to assassinate.

The account published the names of 21 journalists resident in various countries and threatened to kill them. The name of the social media account refers to a group linked to the notorious gendarmerie intelligence unit JITEM.

Later, another hit list emerged which included the names of 55 critics of the Turkish government who live in exile. Politicians and artists are included on the new list in addition to journalists.

Last week Celal Başlangıç, the editor-in-chief of Artı TV and the Artı Gerçek news website, announced that he was also warned by the German police about his name being on an assassination list.

Meanwhile, Erk Acarer, a Turkish journalist critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government who has been living in exile in Germany, also announced on Twitter last week that he had received a threat, a piece of paper with “You just wait” written on it, which he said was wrapped around a boiled egg and thrown into the garden of his house in Berlin.

Acarer was the victim of an attack “with knives and fists” in the courtyard of his apartment building in Berlin on June 7, an incident that led to widespread concerns about the safety of government critics abroad.

Turkish journalists are often targeted and jailed for their journalistic activities. Turkey is one of the world’s biggest jailers of professional journalists and ranked 153rd among 180 countries in terms of press freedom in 2021, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

Thousands of people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges due to their alleged use of the ByLock mobile phone application expect to be acquitted based on a recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the Bold Medya news website reported on Monday.

The ECtHR ruled last week in the case of a former police officer that use of the ByLock application is not an offense in itself and does not constitute sufficient evidence for arrest. The Strasbourg court’s ruling has come as a source of hope for thousands of people who were arrested or sentenced on terrorism charges based mainly on a National Intelligence Organization (MİT) report that detailed users of ByLock.

ByLock, once widely available online, has been considered a secret tool of communication among supporters of the faith-based Gülen movement since a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 despite the lack of any evidence that ByLock messages were related to the abortive putsch.

The Gülen movement is accused by the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of masterminding the failed coup and is labeled a “terrorist organization,” although the movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

The ECtHR ruling on the pre-trial detention of former police officer Tekin Akgün is expected to set a precedent for other applicants who filed similar cases with the court. Under Article 90 of the Turkish Constitution local courts and top appeals courts must comply with ECtHR decisions, releasing people under arrest pending trial and acquitting others convicted based on ByLock use.

In Akgün’s case, the ECtHR ruled that Turkey violated Article 5 § 1 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights as well as Article 5 § 3 (entitlement to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial) and Article 5 § 4 (right to a speedy decision on the lawfulness of detention) in the pre-trial detention of Akgün, who was put in pre-trial detention in October 2016 as part of a massive crackdown launched by Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government on alleged and real followers of the Gülen movement.

“In the absence of other evidence or information, the document in question, stating merely that the applicant was a user of ByLock, could not, in itself, indicate that there were reasonable suspicions that could satisfy an objective observer that he indeed used ByLock in a manner that could amount to the alleged offences,” said the court.

The European court also ordered Turkey to pay Akgün 12,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages and an additional 1,000 euros for costs and expenses.

According to a statement from the interior ministry in March 2019, 95,310 people were charged over alleged use of the ByLock application. In its technical report, which courts use as basis for their decision, MİT stated that 60,473 defendants had at least one message posted using ByLock while 34,837 defendants had not posted any message using the application.

In 2017 Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals found the use of ByLock to be sufficient evidence for terrorist organization membership. Since then, the appeals court has upheld hundreds of sentences passed by local courts based mainly on ByLock use without checking to see if the user had any message content or if the messages had any criminal content.

The Constitutional Court, too, found no violation of rights of the applicants who were sentenced merely based on ByLock use, which it had considered a strong indication for arrest.

The ECtHR’s judgment invalidates the Supreme Court of Appeals and Constitutional Court’s decisions. The two top courts are supposed to change their rulings to comply with the ECtHR’s decision.

The UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stated in October 2018 that detention, arrest and conviction based on ByLock use in Turkey violated of Articles 19, 21 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

German authorities have rejected the asylum applications of two Turkish teachers who worked for schools with ties to the Gülen movement, taking action to deport them to Bulgaria, where they face extradition to Turkey, which accuses the group of masterminding a failed coup in 2016, the Bold Medya news website reported.

The movement strongly denies any involvement in the failed putsch.

According to a special report by Sevinç Özarslan from Bold Medya, Jülide Çetin and Şeyma Demirel, who worked as English teachers arrived in Germany on June 18 with a visa issued by Bulgaria and applied for asylum in the country. They have been kept at the airport for 36 days and say they await deportation within four or five days.

The teachers claim they will not be safe in Bulgaria as the country has deported at least seven Gülen-linked asylum seekers to Turkey, where they faced prosecution.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following the coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding.

According to the latest information provided by Turkish officials, 622,646 people have been the subject of investigation and 301,932 have been detained, while 96,000 others have been jailed due to alleged links to the Gülen movement since the failed coup.

According to recent official statements by Turkey’s interior ministry, Ankara has sent 800 extradition requests to 105 countries since the coup attempt, and some 110 alleged members of the Gülen movement have been brought back to Turkey as part of the government’s global campaign.

A recent report by Freedom House on transnational repression states that Turkey has become number one among countries that have conducted renditions from host states since 2014. The Turkish government has pursued its perceived enemies in at least 30 host countries spread across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia since July 2016.

“Ankara’s campaign has primarily targeted people affiliated with the movement of religious leader Fethullah Gülen, which the government blames for the coup attempt,” the report said.

The report sheds light on the corruption and co-optation of some host country institutions including local police or security services that arrested Turkish citizens, who are then held in detention for a short period before being secretly transferred to Turkish custody and immediately taken to Turkey on Turkish aircraft.

“Turkey’s top officials openly claim credit for the kidnapping offensive against the Gülen movement, and praise the role of the MİT in the renditions,” the report stated.

Starting in 2016 Turkey intensified its efforts to bring back Gülen followers from around the world.

“We will return to the country one by one those [Gülenists] who fled and now think they’re safe,” Erdoğan vowed at the time.

Case of Abdullah Büyük

Businessman Abdullah Büyük, facing prosecution in Turkey over Gülen links, moved to Bulgaria in 2016, imagining the country would be safe for him as an EU member state.

Bulgarian courts denied an extradition request from Turkey for Büyük. However, the Turkish foreign minister announced publicly that they planned to bring “a person of interest” back from Bulgaria.

On his way to a meeting in Sofia, police blocked Büyük’s vehicle. Bulgarians drove him 180 miles to the border, where they handed him over to Turkish authorities.

Accused of membership in a terrorist organization since Ankara designates the movement as such, he was kept in pretrial detention for more than three years and was later released into house arrest with an electronic ankle bracelet while his trial continued.

In a draft report on Turkey prepared by the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee the members of the European Parliament strongly condemned “forced extraditions, kidnapping and abduction of Turkish citizens residing outside Turkey on the sole basis of their alleged links to the Gülen movement” and urged the European Union to address the “worrying” practice in its own member states, notably in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria to pay damages for deporting Turkish journalist

On Tuesday the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that Bulgaria had violated the articles of the European Convention on Human Rights by removing a Turkish journalist who fled Ankara’s crackdown on dissent.

In 2016 the Bulgarian authorities had refused to initiate asylum proceedings for journalist D, who was not named by the ECtHR, and had returned him to Turkey.

The ECtHR held that despite the fact that the applicant had expressed fears that he might face ill-treatment in the event of being returned to Turkey, the Bulgarian authorities had not examined his application for international protection.

“D. previously worked for the Zaman daily newspaper and the Cihan press agency, both belonging to the Feza Media Group, which was viewed as ‘Gülenist’ and as critical of the existing political regime in Turkey,” the ECtHR said in its decision.

“On 6 March 2016 the group’s entire board was replaced by a committee of three members appointed by an Istanbul court. According to the international press, from that date onwards, Zaman adopted a pro-government editorial policy. D stated that after that date he had been dismissed and had his press card withdrawn. Following the adoption of a legislative decree issued on 27 July 2016 in the context of the state of emergency introduced in Turkey after the attempted coup of 15 July 2016, Zaman was closed down. According to D’s explanations, he left Turkey after those events, at a time when a range of measures were being taken against media outlets and journalists (dismissal, arrest, detention and confiscation of passports),” the ECtHR said, stating the principal facts regarding the case.

“Between September and October 2016, D and eight other passengers (six Turkish and two Syrian nationals) crossed the border between Turkey and Bulgaria hidden in a heavy goods vehicle.”

According to the ECtHR decision citing D’s account, they were detained at a Bulgarian border police station and despite the fact that D and and other passengers stated that they wished to seek asylum their requests were to no avail.

“On 15 October 2016, at about 5.30 a.m., D was allegedly handcuffed and taken with the other six Turkish passengers to the Kapitan Andreevo border post, where they were handed over to the Turkish authorities,” the ECtHR said.

D was immediately jailed in Turkey and was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization and sentenced to seven years, six months’ imprisonment. The journalist is currently incarcerated in Kocaeli’s Kandıra Prison.

The ECtHR concluded that, despite the fact that D had expressed fears that he might face ill-treatment in the event of being returned to Turkey, the Bulgarian authorities had not examined his application for international protection, violating the Articles 3 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court ordered Bulgaria to pay D 15,000 euros in non-pecuniary damages.

Prominent Turkish journalist and professor of economics Mehmet Altan has filed a lawsuit for damages against one of the judges who failed to provide his timely release from prison despite rulings from Turkey’s Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the t24 news website reported.

Mehmet Altan was one of dozens of journalists who were arrested in Turkey in a crackdown on government critics in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in July 2016.

Altan filed the compensation case against presiding judge of the İstanbul 26th High Criminal Court Orkun Dağ, who forced the journalist to remain in prison for an additional five and a half months.

Turkey’s Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) took no action against Dağ due to his failure to observe the rulings of the Constitutional Court and the ECtHR about Altan. He was even later promoted and became a member of Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court in January 2018 ruled that Altan’s right to freedom had been violated, while the ECtHR ruled in March 2018 that Altan’s right to liberty and security as well as his right to freedom of expression were violated during his imprisonment. Altan’s incarceration, however, continued until June 2018

He was later acquitted of the charges in a retrial.

During his trial, Altan was expelled from the university he was working for in İstanbul due to the charges he faced, and his demand to be reinstated was rejected by a commission set up by the Turkish government to look into complaints from individuals who were adversely affected by government decrees during a state of emergency (OHAL) declared following the coup.

Altan’s lawyer Figen Albuga Çalıkuşu, who filed the compensation case on her client’s behalf, said she is sad to be acting as an attorney in a country where judges who contravene the constitution are protected.

“My goal is to keep a record of this arbitrariness,” said the lawyer.

The compensation case against Dağ will be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Appeals. If the court rules in favor of Altan, this will be the first time since the failed coup that a member of the Turkish judiciary will pay compensation for their failure to observe the rulings of the rights courts.

It has become frequent for Turkish courts not to act in line with the rulings of the Constitutional Court or the ECtHR. Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtaş and prominent businessman Osman Kavala are behind bars despite ECtHR rulings calling for their release.

The Brooklyn Eyup Sultan Mosque, which is funded and operated by Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet), on Sunday denied religious services for deceased Turkish-American businessman Muharrem Atmaca due to his links to the Gülen movement, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported, citing the TR724 news website.

Atmaca’s family contacted the mosque, scheduled the funeral prayer with imam Mehmet Aydın and informed their loved ones and the Turkish-American community. Yet, only half an hour before the prayer, someone from the funeral home called the grieving family and said they received a call from the mosque saying that they wouldn’t be able to conduct the prayer service “upon instructions from the Turkish Consulate General in New York.”

The family had to perform the funeral prayer in a small room in the funeral home.

Atmaca was a businessman who immigrated to New York 40 years ago. He was a well-known figure in the Turkish-American community due to his support for numerous philanthropic projects. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in March 2020 and passed away on Friday.

“He was someone loved and respected by people with different worldviews,” Atmaca’s family said. “He has been donating to the mosque that refused to conduct his funeral prayer for years. It was a huge disappointment for us.”

Atmaca was buried in a Muslim cemetery in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. following a prayer led by Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric who inspired the Gülen movement.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the abortive putsch or any terrorist activity.

Diyanet-affiliated mosques and foundations around the world have been accused of acting as Erdoğan’s propaganda tools and involvement in spying on his critics. Through its foundation Diyanet provides funding and appoints imams, who are public servants on the government payroll, to the overseas mosques.