They seemed an utterly normal family and yet were scared to publicly reveal their names. They came from Turkey, where a coup attempt in July led to a government sweep of mass arrests and firings. Targeted with particular suspicion: anyone affiliated with a popular movement known for its schools, good works, pro-Western brand of Islam and perceived elusiveness.
Nearly three dozen Turkish diplomats and family members have claimed asylum in Germany over alleged affiliation to the network of US-based opposition leader Fethullah Gulen, whom the government in Ankara claims to have masterminded the failed July 15 coup attempt.
Erdogan, by contrast, has given voice to an alternative narrative in which Ataturk’s willingness in the Treaty of Lausanne to abandon territories such as Mosul and the now-Greek islands in the Aegean was not an act of eminent pragmatism but rather a betrayal. The suggestion, against all evidence, is that better statesmen, or perhaps a more patriotic one, could have gotten more.
Until this summer, Cetin Gul of Istanbul, Turkey, worked as a videographer for a company that did promotional work for clients that included a charity organization. That charity, Hizmet, is associated with the movement of Fethullah Gulen. After a deadly and unsuccessful coup attempt by some in the Turkish military in July, the government began suppressing organizations associated with him. “Because of the direct association with Hizmet, I was a direct target,” Mr. Gul said.
Helton Silva Malambane, a software developer from Mozambique who previously worked with the now-shut-down Fatih University, was detained by police at his residence in İstanbul over links to the Gülen movement, whose sympathizers the government accuses of masterminding a failed coup attempt on July 15. Twenty-seven-year-old Malambane was detained after police received anonymous tips about him.
“It’s a kind of civil death,” Kerem Altiparmak, a human rights lawyer and political science professor at Ankara University told Los Angeles Times on Wednesday when describing how the lives of thousands of people change after the July 15 coup attempt.
“It’s a kind of civil death,” Kerem Altıparmak, a human rights lawyer and political science professor at Ankara University, told the Los Angeles Times to describe how the lives of thousands have changed since a July 15 coup attempt. “You cannot leave the country, you cannot find other jobs, either because of legal or de facto obstacles, because even in the private sector people do not want to employ you.”
Speaking with the Cumhuriyet daily about his last visit to journalists in Silivri Prison in İstanbul, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) İstanbul deputy Mehmet Bekaroğlu said that journalists, including Bulaç, were insulted by police officers during their questioning.
Turkish-Kazakh schools across Kazakhstan are being renamed amid a campaign by Turkey against the exiled Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. The Turkish-Kazakh schools were co-founded by Gulen’s Hizmet movement and his followers and have been functioning in Kazakhstan since early 1990s.
Turkey’s infamous mob boss Alaattin Çakıcı implied in a letter to the Justice Ministry that his mafia network could kill Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen in Pennsylvania and his senior followers elsewhere in the world. Çakıcı’s letter came weeks after Turkey’s controversial request that the US extradite Gülen.