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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).

Gökhan Güneş, who returned home nearly a week after he was allegedly abducted by Turkish intelligence officers in broad daylight in İstanbul, has said he was tortured and subjected to threats during his enforced disappearance, local media reported on Tuesday.

Missing since around noon on Jan. 20, Gökhan returned home on his own, reportedly after he was left blindfolded in İstanbul’s Başakşehir district, where he works as an electrician and was abducted nearly a week ago, around 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

With bruises on his face and hands, Gökhan later on Tuesday made a statement at the İstanbul branch of the Human Rights Association (İHD), telling of the torture he was subjected to during the days he was missing.

“They tortured me from time to time. This included electric shocks, beatings and pouring ice-cold water over me. They did this to me either while I was naked or wearing only my underwear. They also threatened me with rape,” he said.

Gökhan added that his torturers also asked him to cooperate by serving as an informant.

“They asked me whether I knew who they were. When I told them they were probably from [Turkish] intelligence, they remained silent. Sometimes they told me they were ‘the invisibles’,” Gökhan further stated.

Commenting on the reason for his abduction and the week-long torture, he said they took place because of his political identity as a socialist.

“Many similar incidents involving socialists took place in the past. These emerged as part of a policy in the 1990s. They continue carrying out the same policy today, and they will do so in the days ahead. But this is a social struggle rather than an individual one … and they know that they can’t silence us like this.”

Gökhan’s sister Nurhayat told the Etkin news agency (ETHA) on Jan. 21 that they suspect he was abducted by government officials because it had happened before.

“He was briefly detained two years ago, and the officers let us know about it a day after it happened. He has been followed and harassed from time to time. They attempted to abduct him before,” she added.

Sezin Uçar, a lawyer representing the Güneş family, told BBC Turkish service that Gökhan had previously been kept behind bars before he was acquitted of charges related to anti-war demonstrations.

Enforced disappearances, which were common in Turkey during the 1990s, made a reappearance following a failed coup in July 2016, according to a report recently drafted by Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, who is also a prominent human rights activist and deputy chair of the Human Rights Committee in parliament.

The country’s intelligence agency has reportedly abducted dozens of people since 2016, with some 24 victims reporting, after they were found, that they were subjected to harsh torture during the time they were missing.

A 9-month-old baby has been required to accompany her mother, Yasemin Melizci, 29, in a prison quarantine cell, sparking criticism from human rights activists, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported citing Bold Medya.

Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights activist and deputy from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a left-wing party with majority-Kurdish support, announced Melizci’s Thursday arrest on Twitter. “Is another baby going to be locked up in prison with her mother?” he asked.

Although the Law on the Execution of Sentences and Security Measures stipulates that the “execution of the prison sentence is delayed for women who are pregnant or have given birth within the last 18 months,” Turkish authorities have been arresting mothers with children as young as 1 month old.

Melizci and her husband Kasım Melizci, 32, were accused of membership in the Gülen movement, a faith based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, based on witness testimony and for using encrypted messaging app ByLock. Turkish authorities claim that ByLock was a communication tool used exclusively by members of the movement to ensure the privacy of their conversations. Yet, the app was available on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

In an opinion the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said using the ByLock application is the mere exercise of freedom of expression, a right protected under article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

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. 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.

The actual number of children in prison with their mothers is unknown, but it is believed that the number reaches into the hundreds. The Rights Initiative Association (Hak Insiyatifi) said there were 780 children in prison with their mothers as of November 2019.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the arrest of mothers with babies has been a cause for more concern among activists and critics because quarantine wards are notorious for their poor conditions and overcrowding. turkishminute

“Who introduced you to your spouse?” is one of the questions routinely asked during the interrogation of people detained as part of investigations into the Gülen movement in Turkey. This seemingly odd question about private life is connected to the mass incarceration of thousands of people in the country. A police operation on the morning of Jan. 26 that led to the detention of 19 upon warrants issued by Ankara prosecutors was just one example.

The detainees are charged with forming the “marriage network” of the Gülen group, which is accused by the Turkish government of orchestrating a failed coup in July 2016 despite its denial of any involvement. According to the prosecutors, the suspects taken into custody were involved in efforts to help single Gülen movement followers get married.

“In the framework of investigations into FETÖ’s current marriage network, detention warrants have been issued in Ankara for 19 suspects across 13 provinces who have been identified in informant testimonies as being affiliated with the FETÖ/PDY,” the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office said in a written statement, using the derogatory terminology that the Turkish government and authorities have adopted to refer to the group.

Intel criteria for identifying Gülen followers

Family is also one of the fields that the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) looks into as part of their efforts to uncover members of the faith-based group. Having a handicapped child is also one of MİT’s criteria as Gülen followers often choose not to abort their handicapped babies out of religious considerations.

Another criterion is how the spouses met each other. If the couple was introduced to each other with the help of a Gülen follower, the entire family is identified as such.

Coming from a modest socioeconomic background and climbing up in society is also one of the criteria. For instance, high-ranking civil servants or military officers who grew up in rural areas and in families without other high-level bureaucrats are also suspected.

Getting an education abroad and speaking foreign languages are also listed as criteria as many Gülen followers, particularly those in public service, have gone abroad for education at some point in their lives and their linguistic skills are often above the national average.

Among the many criteria, those who fulfill at least three are usually identified as suspected Gülen movement members and referred by prosecutors to courts for arrest.

Police registering stories of marriage

According to Interior Ministry data, some 550,000 people in Turkey have been the subject of Gülen-related investigations, and about 170,000 have thus far been arrested for varying periods of time. Some 30,000 are currently held behind bars, and thousands of cases are still pending before courts.

Questions about marriage are included in a blueprint list of questions compiled for the interrogation of allegedly Gülen-affiliated detainees. Along with questions regarding whether the suspects had accounts at the Gülen-linked Bank Asya or went to a Gülen-affiliated school, they are also asked how they met their spouses. The suspects’ stories about their relationship and marriage are included in their interrogation files. If suspects reveal that they were introduced to their spouses by means of an identified Gülen follower, their marriage is flagged in the investigation as an “organizationally arranged marriage.”

With hundreds of thousands of followers and sympathizers, over 90 percent of whom are university graduates, the movement comprises one of the best-educated segments of Turkish society, where the national average of the university-educated is at 13.9 percent.

In the beginning, members of the group had a hard time grasping the reason behind the questions dealing with their private life. When sports teacher Semra Polat was detained in 2017, she was unaware of the family-related criteria. Polat was asked how she met her husband, which she found ridiculous. After many Gülen followers faced criminal charges arising from their marriages, members of the group now expect to be interrogated about their private lives if or when they are detained.

The strictest marriage-related monitoring was conducted in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) where, according to a February 2017 report by the pro-government Milliyet newspaper, military officers whose spouses were doctors or judges were listed as suspected Gülen followers by Ankara prosecutors as their marriage was found to be “unnatural.”

Criminal criteria specifically tailored for Gülen followers

Living under immense pressure and excluded from social life for the last few years, Gülen member marriages and cohabitation are treated by authorities as criminal organization activity. Over the last two years, mass detention operations targeting student houses have been presented by the authorities and the pro-government media as “re-structuring,” meaning new efforts by Gülen members to reorganize among themselves, and investigations into marriages have been introduced by using the term “marriage network.”

Amid an ongoing crackdown on Kurdish politicians in Turkey, a court has ruled for the arrest and pretrial detention of a former deputy from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) on terrorism charges, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The ruling was made by the Diyarbakır 9th High Criminal Court on Wednesday at the start of the trial of former HDP deputy Hatice Kocaman on charges of terrorist organization membership, in which she faces a prison sentence of between seven-and-a-half and 15 years.

During Wednesday’s hearing, attended by Kocaman and her lawyer, the court ruled for the politician’s arrest and remand into pretrial detention despite a demand from her lawyer for an acquittal.

The court adjourned the trial to a later date. Kocaman was detained following the hearing and subsequently jailed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government accuse the HDP of links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, leading to the prosecution of thousands of its members and some leaders. The HDP denies such links.

The party’s former co-leaders have both been jailed since 2016 on terrorism charges, with several other prominent members accused of supporting terrorism over what the government says are links to the PKK.

The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has refused to file charges based on torture allegations made by Zabit Kişi, 48, who said he was tortured for more than three months after being abducted from Kazakhstan by the Turkish intelligence agency (MİT), claiming a lack of evidence, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported citing Bold Medya.

Speaking to Bold Medya, Kişi said he provided the prosecutor with documents and records he had gathered. However, the prosecutor, Adem Ayyıldız, said there was not enough evidence to start legal proceedings. Kişi alleged that the prosecutor did not sufficiently investigate his claims.

“The prosecutor did not even bother to hear my testimony,” he said. “Collecting evidence is the prosecutor’s job, but despite all my requests they [the prosecutor’s office] have not taken any action.”

Kişi, a teacher, moved his family to Kyrgyzstan with the hope of landing a job after he became unemployed in Turkey in December 2015. The private school he had been working for was closed after a government crackdown on schools run by businesspeople close to 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. 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.

In his absence the authorities issued an arrest warrant for him, based on allegations that he was linked to alleged putschist admirals in the Gölcük Naval Command. It became obvious during cross-examination in court that the allegations were baseless and that neither of the admirals knew him nor did he know the admirals.

Kişi’s ordeal started when he was detained in Kazakhstan for immigration irregularities when he traveled from Bishkek to Almaty. The Kazakh court ordered him to return to Kyrgyzstan, where had had a family and maintained a residence. On September 30, 2017, he went to the airport with his lawyer for deportation procedures in Almaty and started waiting for his flight to Bishkek. During the security check, his lawyer was told he could not accompany him.

He was detained again at the airport and confined to a room. He overheard airport officials talking about a plane from Turkey that would be landing soon to pick him up. A MİT team forcibly removed him from the terminal and put him on a plane he described as painted with a camouflage pattern.

A minivan picked him up after landing at the airport in Ankara, and he was driven to what he described as a freight container where he was subjected to torture and abuse for more than three months. The three-square-meter container had no window, and he could barely move around. “It was like a grave to me,” he recalled. “My only escape from there was my death. I never imagined death could seem so pleasant.”

The MIT officers stripped him naked, slammed him against the wall, attempted to sodomize him with a hard object, electrocuted and crushed his toes and threatened to kill him. He had no access to legal representation or any other contact with the outside world.

Kişi turned up in an Ankara court on January 18, 2018, having drastically lost weight and claiming he was tortured. He was later sentenced to 13 years, six months in prison on terrorism-related charges.

Testifying at the Kocaeli 5th High Criminal Court on April 3, 2018, Kişi told the judges how he was beaten on the plane during the three-hour flight from Almaty to Ankara after his abduction. According to his account, the agents started hitting him in the head and genitals while he was blindfolded and handcuffed from behind. He passed out from the blows he received to his head, but the abuse continued after a member of the MİT team checked to make sure he still had a pulse.

The Turkish government is accused of engaging in the systematic practice of state-sponsored extraterritorial abductions and forcible returns to Turkey, with at least 100 Turkish nationals from multiple states that are dependent on Ankara for financial, political or humanitarian support including Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Gabon, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and Pakistan removed to Turkey.

Speaking to Financial Times, Nate Schenkkan, Director of Research Strategy in Freedom House, said, “Turkey has done illegal renditions from more countries in the last six years than any other country in the world.”

“It will never end, not as long as Erdogan is in power . . . this is such a high priority for them that they will sacrifice other foreign policy goals,” Schenkkan added.

In different cases the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has concluded that the arrest, detention and forced transfer to Turkey of Turkish nationals were arbitrary and in violation of international human rights norms and standards.

UN rapporteurs sent a joint letter to the Turkish government in May 2020 to express their concern about the “systematic practice of state-sponsored extraterritorial abductions and forcible return of Turkish nationals from multiple states to Turkey.”

The rapporteurs said the Turkish government allegedly signed bilateral security cooperation agreements with multiple states for the expulsion or abduction of Turkish nationals and asked Turkey how those agreements were compatible with the country’s international human rights obligations.

In its response the Turkish government provided an info note containing its well-known views on the Gülen movement and the July 15 coup attempt. The letter, which was submitted by Turkey’s permanent mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva, requested that the UN rapporteurs “not … allow FETÖ [a derogatory acronym used by the government to label the Gülen movement] and its members to abuse these mechanisms and to dismiss their allegations.”

Ekrem, a one-and-a-half-year-old toddler, and his four-year-old sister Zülal became separated from not just one but both their parents when their mother was arrested as part of a crackdown in Turkey targeting followers of the faith-based Gülen movement, the Bold Medya news website reported on Tuesday.

İlayda and Hasan Tekgöz are accused of links to the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen and critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The Erdoğan administration accuses Gülen and his followers of masterminding an abortive putsch on July 15, 2016 and labels the movement a terrorist organization. Both the preacher and members of his movement, however, strongly deny involvement in the coup or any terrorist activity.

Ekrem and Zülal’s mother, formerly a math teacher working at a prep school linked to the movement, was initially detained on July 19, 2019, two hours after giving birth to her son, and was released and placed under judicial supervision shortly afterwards.

Thirty-two-year-old İlayda was arrested by the İstanbul 28th High Criminal Court on Tuesday due to the existence of a flight risk and sent to İstanbul’s Bakırköy Closed Women’s Prison, where children are not allowed to accompany their mothers due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Accusations directed at the mother were based on her use of the ByLock messaging app, possession of an account at Bank Asya, a now-closed Islamic lender affiliated with the Gülen movement, and a witness statement.

İlayda’s husband Hasan, a mechanical engineer, was also arrested in February 2020 and sentenced to six years, 10 months in prison. He has been in İstanbul’s Silivri Prison for the past 11 months.

“Two more children were separated from their mother today! What is this for?” Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), tweeted on Tuesday.

Gergerlioğlu, also a member of parliament’s Human Rights Inquiry Committee, formerly stated that the arrest of both parents, which shatters families, is a “method of punishment” systematically imposed by Erdoğan’s AKP government.turkishminu

The father of Yusuf Bilge Tunç, who went missing more than a year ago and is feared to have been abducted by Turkish intelligence, said their lives stopped the day his son went missing.

Tunç’s father, Mustafa Tunç, said in an interview with Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights activist and lawmaker from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), that they “no longer lived” but just survived. “Our lives have been engulfed by the grief we feel over Yusuf Bilge’s fate,” he said.

Tunç disappeared in the Ankara on August 6, 2019 in broad daylight, leaving no trace behind. Mustafa Tunç said that neither the police nor the prosecutor had cooperated with the family in finding their son.

Tunç’s car was found in a remote area 45 days after he vanished in Ankara’s GİMAT shopping mall. His family immediately called the police; yet the police showed no real interest in his disappearance. “The police only conducted a crime scene investigation six months after we found the car and contacted them,” said Mustafa Tunç. “We had already removed the car from where we found it so the investigation was really a formality.”

Although the family was afraid he had been abducted, the police dismissed their fears, saying: “He might have fled and left his car behind. Take a look at the CCTV footage. He will return.”

According to Tunç’s father the officials treated his son’s case as a domestic dispute. “They acted as if my son was someone who deserted his wife and child and ran away. We requested that his phone records be examined. After nearly a year, we still have no results from the phone records. My daughter-in-law and I requested that the prosecutor check the city surveillance cameras; however, they refused to look at them. The investigation file contains abundant correspondence among state institutions, revealing no serious effort for a thorough investigation.”

Tunç worked in Turkey’s Undersecretariat for the Defense Industries, the government agency responsible for defense procurement, and he was summarily fired with an executive decree after a July 15, 2016 coup attempt.

Nearly 30 people have reportedly been abducted by Turkish intelligence since 2016. Most of the abductions targeted members of the Gülen movement, a faith based group inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen.

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 Gülen 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.

Many of the abductees mysteriously reappeared in police custody in Ankara after six to nine-month absences. Apparently intimidated, most of them had kept their silence after their reappearance.

Speaking at a court hearing in February 2020, one of the abductees, Gökhan Türkmen, revealed that he had been held incommunicado at a black site in Ankara run by Turkey’s intelligence agency and subjected to severe torture during his 271-day stay. Türkmen was the object of threats and was sexually harassed and abused during his enforced disappearance. He also alleged that he was visited in prison and threatened no less than six times by officials who introduced themselves as intelligence officers, pressuring him to retract his allegations of abduction and torture made at the February hearing.

In a recent joint letter UN special rapporteurs expressed their concern about the “systematic practice of state-sponsored extraterritorial abductions and forcible return of Turkish nationals suspected of involvement with the Gülen movement from multiple States to Turkey.”