The new Turkey |
||||
Last update:27-Feb-2021 |
||||
Abducted Person in Tokat
 It is learned from the news coverage of February 22, 2021 that, Ali Rıza Çalpar (26) was abducted by anonymous persons in Kınık town of Almus district of Tokat on February 5, 2021 and was subjected to torture and ill-treatment. It is reported that Ali Rıza Çalpar was released near Almus Dam on the same day. Ali Rıza Çalpar stated the following: “I departed on foot from Şendere street of Gevrek neighbourhood in Kınık town of Almus district of Tokat towards Görümlü town. A white car (Renault Kangoo model) stopped by me while I was on my way. (…) 3 persons with black face masks got off the car and attacked me. One of them was squeezing my neck to bend my head and pushing me to the car while others were holding my arms and trying to put me in the car. I pushed by feet to the back seats to resist but I felt a burning in my neck and lost consciousness (…)
Abducted Persons in Ankara It is learned that the lawyers calling Security Directorate for allegation of abduction were responded as “their names are not in detention or hospital lists”. Ali Ayduğan who was subjected to physical violence is released in Gölbaşı district, Uğurcan Baynal who was threatened is released in Pursaklar district and S. B. who was also threatened is released in Sincan district on the same day. Ali Ayduğan stated the following at the press declaration held at Human Rights Association (IHD) Ankara office: “They took me away from my friends, saying that they would ask some questions. Then they dragged me into the car. They kept me in the travelling car and threatened and committed physical violence for two hours. At one point we got out of Ankara city borders. They slowed down the car in a street in Gölbaşı, and saying ‘get off’ and threw me out of the moving car. They said ‘Tell your friends that we will take them too. You will not walk around the streets or we will kill you’ to threaten us.
IHD, Saturday Mothers call for effective investigation into disappearance of former bureaucrat The Human Rights Association (İHD) asked Turkish authorities to urgently find Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit, a former bureaucrat who has been missing since December 29, at a press conference they held today together with his daughter Nursena Küçüközyiğit and some members of the group known as the Saturday Mothers, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.According to the Mezopotamya news agency, Gülseren Yoleri, head of the İHD’s İstanbul branch, called on the government and the judicial authorities to investigate the case of Küçüközyiğit. “They should urgently find where Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit is by conducting an effective investigation and inform his family,” she said. Nursena said it has been 51 days since her father went missing and that despite contacting all the relevant authorities they had not received any feedback. “The CCTV footage that I was able to obtain was not examined,” she said. “A couple of months ago Gökhan Güneş had been the victim of an enforced disappearance. When he was released, he talked about how he was tortured. I don’t want my father to suffer the same.” Read the full article 1 February 2021: INVESTIGATE SUSPECTED ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit, a former legal advisor at the Prime Ministry who was dismissed following the 2016 coup attempt, has been missing since 29 December 2020. His family suspect him to have been abducted and subjected to enforced disappearance and all their efforts to locate him since have been in vain. The authorities have denied that he is in official custody. Turkish authorities must promptly investigate to determine the whereabouts of Hüseyin Galip Küçüközyiğit and urgently inform his family. Read more............... Abducted Person in Istanbul  It is learned that a person named Gökhan Güneş was abducted by 5 people forcing him into a car in front of his workplace in Başakşehir district of Istanbul on January 20, 2021. It is reported that the application of his family and lawyers to Istanbul Provincial Security of Directorate was responded as “Gökhan Güneş is not here”. It is claimed in the news reports that the persons abducted Gökhan Güneş was undercover police officer.
Gökhan Güneş’s sister states the following in her declaration to press: “A tracking device was placed in our car earlier. A surveillance camera was placed in the power pole in front of our house. My brother was tried to be abducted previously. (…) [On that day] he was on the bus talking on the phone with his fiancé. After this 3 minutes’ conversation, we could not receive any news from him. (…) After he was abducted we went to police stations but we were not given any information. Then we demanded the city surveillance cameras should be examined. They said ‘The officer in charge is not here not. S/he will be at work by 8 p.m.’. Then we went there again at 8 p.m. and this time they said that the officer will be there at 8 a.m. next morning. But at 8 a.m. next morning we were not paid attention again. (…) We found on our own the video recording of the minutes he was abducted. We learned that an investigation was initiated against the person from whom we got the recordings.”
Esra Fırat, spouse of Bahtiyar Fırat, stated the following: “My husband went to Istanbul Airport to take the flight to Tahran at 01.15 with flight number TK 0878. After he went through passport check and while he was waiting for the flight, police officers have come near him. The police have told him, ‘You are under custody, we will take you to the intelligence service’. They made him wait at the airport for 3 hours. During that waiting, the plane has already left the airport, and the police have told him ‘it was a misunderstanding, you can go now’ and released him. My husband called me as soon as he gets a taxi to get back to home. He said, ‘I got on a taxi now. There are four cars surrounding the taxi. They are following me. I am circled by four cars, two of them are on both sides, one is before and the other is behind us. They did this to make me miss the flight. The intelligence service interrogated me. If you cannot hear from me, go to the prosecutor’ (…) I know that they have my husband. Because we went to the prosecutor’s office and the prosecutor told the lawyers that National Intelligence Service may have him, and that they would release him and we should be patient.” It is learned from the news coverage that an investigation is to be initiated by the prosecutor’s office. 29 August 2020: Abducted and Forced to be Police Informant in Istanbul…
It is learned from the news coverage of August 27, 2020 that 3 members of Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were forced to be police informants by persons claim themselves to be intelligence officers in Istanbul. A press declaration is held at Human Rights Association (IHD) Istanbul and HDP member Musa Taştan stated there that, he was being stopped from time to time by persons claim themselves to be intelligent officers and was forced to be police informant; and that he was threatened to be detained for he rejects to be informant and was subjected to physical violence of these persons.
It is learned from the news coverage of August 21, 2020 that, Burcu Durak, member of Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and Ankara provincial spokesperson of Socialist Women’s Assembly (SKM) is abducted by people claim themselves to be police officers, on August 19, 2020 in Ankara.
Burcu Durak made a press declaration at Human Rights Association (IHD) headquarters in Ankara and stated the following: “Several female undercover police officers came to me while I was leaving my workplace. I told them I did not want to talk to them. They said ‘It does not matter what you think’. Male undercover officers came around and forced me to get in a car. The police officers said ‘We will help you to be appointed as a public officer if you do what we say’. I asked, ‘you are public officers too, how could you help?’; and they responded ‘we are the state’. They forced me to be a police informant. They threatened me with my family. And they said they would arrest me if I participate in protests. They also asked me why I participated in the protest about Istanbul Convention. They kept me in the car on the move for about 40 minutes. Then they left me on a wayside after travelling in some desolated areas that I do not know.” 10 July 2020: Turkish police capture 4 suspects in 3 countries
All suspects, wanted for different crimes, had outstanding red notices for Interpol. In Belarus, Hicri Mamaş, a PKK terrorist who goes by alias Bedran Cudi, was captured. Mamaş, who fled to the
country with a fake ID, was posing as an activist for a Turkish political party linked to the terrorist group. Mamaş, who had an active role in the terrorist group’s camps in Northern Iraq, was charged with delivering guns to sympathizers of the terrorist group before their attacks on security forces in southeastern Turkey in 2015. Kemal Kahya and Ramazan Zor were captured in the Netherlands. Kahya was wanted for smuggling drugs to Turkey. Zor, who was captured with 17 kilograms of drugs in the eastern Turkish province of Elazığ earlier, had fled to Netherlands. Samet Ardıç, another wanted suspect, was captured in Kyrgyzstan. Ardıç was wanted for sexual abuse of an underage girl in 2010 in the southwestern Turkish town of Bodrum. 6 November 2019: Another missing Gülenist mysteriously reappears at a police station in Antalya
Gökhan Türkmen, who disappeared in February and was believed to have been abducted by Turkish intelligence, was “captured” on Tuesday in the southern Turkish province of Antalya, according to his wife. Türkmen’s reappearance was announced by his wife, Zehra Türkmen, who on Tuesday tweeted that “[her] husband was captured and was being taken to the Ankara Security Directorate,” according to a phone call she received from the Antalya police. There were no details as to how and where exactly the man was captured. Türkmen was one of six men who were abducted in February. He was abducted in Antalya. All men had been purged from state jobs due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement, which is accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup in July 2016. The movement denies any involvement in the coup. Four of the abducted men were found in police custody in July, while one was found in police custody in October. More than 20 people were reportedly been abducted by Turkey’s intelligence agency in a massive post-coup crackdown targeting Gülen movement followers in the aftermath of the coup attempt. 18 September 2019: Turkish teacher says unidentified men tried to abduct him in Ankara Hayrullah Narin is a public school teacher who is also a member of Eğitim-Sen, an education sector union critical of the Turkish government. Narin said one of the men had threatened him, saying, “We know the school where you work.” The unidentified men’s vehicle that they had tried to put Narin into was photographed by a Twitter user, who said the same kind of vehicle, a black Ford Transporter minivan, was used in previous abduction cases. The license plate of the vehicle, 06 MBC 32, can be seen in the photo. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a human rights activist and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputy, has tweeted that he would follow the case to the end. At least 24 people who were suspects in investigations into the faith-based Gülen movement have reportedly been abducted by Turkish intelligence officers since a failed coup in 2016. Court arrests 4 men allegedly abducted by Turkish intelligence
Gökhan Türkmen and Mustafa Yılmaz, who were also abducted in February, are still missing.
Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a Turkish deputy and human rights activist, called the court ruling a “scandal,” reporting that the detainees did not even know the names of their attorneys, who according to officials they hired. Lawyers from human rights organizations were removed from the corridors near the courtroom by the police, the DW report stated. Turkey accuses the Gülen movement of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt, although it strongly denies any involvement. Since 2016 at least 24 Gülen-linked individuals have gone missing. Two of the abducted Gülen followers told Correctiv, a non-profit investigative newsroom in Europe, they had been subjected to torture and ill treatment by intelligence officers at a secret site in Ankara. -------------------------------- Turkish rights groups call on authorities to abolish units responsible for abductions
Four rights organisations and lawyers said on Wednesday that certain units within Turkish state security organisations were likely to be responsible for abduction incidents, and called on the authorities to take the appropriate action against them, Mezopotamya News Agency reported on Wednesday. The rights groups organised a joint press conference after families of four men, who went missing along with two others in February, were informed by the authorities on Sunday that their relatives were being held by the Ankara police department’s anti-terror department. All six men were among public servants sacked from their jobs over links to Gülen religious movement, which Turkey accuses of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016. The police said the four men had been detained during a routine security check in Ankara on Sunday. But the authorities have given no indication of where the men were during the five previous months. In a joint declaration, four civil society organisations – the Human Right Association, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, Ankara Chamber of Medicine, and Rights Initiative – said that the authorities were neglecting their responsibility to effectively investigate human rights violations and bring those responsible to justice. “The only thing that comes to our minds in relation to that incident is that a special unit within the state is carrying out those abductions and that everybody is staying silent about these practices. We do not want a new report on extra-judicial practices. Turkey has to abolish those special units,” the statement said. The rights groups said the police had allowed only one member of each family to visit the detainees, while the lawyers had still not been permitted to visit their clients. The police had denied all knowledge on the two other men who were still missing, they said. Kerem Altıparmak, an academic and a human rights advocate, said that the police’s treatment of the four detainees had raised suspicions of a coverup of serious misconduct. He said that the families had filed a complaint immediately after those people had gone missing, but they had not been provided with any information about the progress of the investigation. Altıparmak said the police had told the families that the detainees did not want lawyers. “Now why would a person who has been missing for six months decline to be represented by a lawyer. There is no reasonable explanation for that,” he said. Neither the lawyers nor the families had information whether the detainees had undergone medical checks, Altıparmak said. Emir Seydi Kaya, the lawyer of one of the detainees, said that the prosecutors had denied responsibility for investigating whether the detainees had been tortured and had declined the lawyers’ demand for detainees to be checked by independent experts. From Relatives of the Disappeared to Erdoğan: We Don’t Live in Bright Picture You Draw
While the relatives of the disappeared carried carnations and pictures of their losses in their hands, this week's gathering was also attended by Republican People's Party (CHP) MP Sezgin Tanrıkulu and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chairs Sezai Temelli and Pervin Buldan, who is also the wife of Savaş Buldan, who was commemorated in this gathering. Reading out this week's statement for the press on behalf of Saturday Mothers/People, Besna Tosun addressed the Judicial Reform Strategy document introduced by President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last week: CLICK - President Erdoğan Announces Judicial Reform Strategy 'We are made to live in unlawfulness'"We don't live in the 'Bright Picture of Turkey' that the President has drawn. We live in a limbo where we cannot learn the fate of our loved ones who were disappeared. We are made to live in a state of unlawfulness where we cannot reach the truth and justice and cannot communicate our demands to the public. We are making a call to the President: "What we need as a society is not the judicial packages that are the repetition of each other and remain unfulfilled, but the practices that will ensure real justice, democracy and human rights. "We are calling onyou to immediately initiate the practices based on our Constitutional demands and democratic requests of society in the name of truth, justice and conscience. 'We know the perpetrators very well'Taking the floor after Besna Tosun, HDP Co-Chair Pervin Buldan, who is also the wife of Savaş Buldan disappeared in custody 25 years ago today, also made the following remarks: "In this 25-year period, we appealed to everyone, we knocked on every door. But, we were faced with thick walls and a silent, deaf and mute system that doesn't see the incident and doesn't want it to be investigated. For 25 years, we have done our best to ensure that murderers will be brought to justice. "The policy of systematic disappearance and massacre has been continuing up until today. In fact, we know very well who the perpetrators are. We know that these murders were committed by the hand of the state. Because the ones who committed these murders have never hidden themselves, they told about the murders in some commissions. However, the state and government didn't do anything to change it. "If the ones killed in unidentified murders are not a part of this judicial reform, if there is nothing about the trial of the responsible parties in it, then we don't expect anything from this judicial reform. These issues should definitely be included in the reform, the society must be relieved." (EMK/AÖ/SD) July 2018: 2017:
TURKEY 2017 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT There were some unconfirmed reports of disappearances during the year, some of which human rights groups alleged were politically motivated. Opposition politicians and respected human rights groups claimed at least 11 abductions or disappearances of individuals with alleged Gulen ties or who opposed the government occurred. Similarly in April Onder Asan disappeared in Ankara. Six weeks later, his family located him in an Ankara police station. Asan alleged that before being transferred to official custody, he was interrogated and tortured by security forces. Most of the victims identified by HRW had been dismissed from government jobs under the state of emergency. Government officials disputed HRW's claims but declined to provide information on its investigative efforts, if any.
ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES TARGETING
THE GULEN MOVEMENT |
||||
 |
+
The Turkish Interpol police launched simultaneous operations in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Netherlands and 
A Turkish teacher said 
