8 including children, academics detained while on way to escape to Greece

At least 8 people were detained while they were allegedly on their way to flee Turkey’s post-coup crackdown to Greece, media said on Dec 10.

Media said gendarmerie stopped 8 people in a prohibited military zone near Turkey’s border with Greece in the western province of Edirne.

The detainees were identified as M.Y., an academic dismissed from Istanbul University; O.S., a dismissed air force officer; Y.Y., a teacher who license was revoked by the government; H.H.E., an academic dismissed from Istanbul Technical University; and S.A. and O.A., two former police chiefs who were earlier removed from their jobs.

While the suspects were detained, two children who accompanied them for a would-be departure to Greece, were handed over to their relatives.

The suspects were earlier blacklisted for their alleged use of ByLock, an smartphone chatting app that Turkish government claims to be the top communication tool among supporters of the Gulen movement.

Thousands of people have fled Turkey due to a massive witch-hunt launched by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government against sympathizers of the Gülen movement in the wake of a failed coup attempt on July 15. The government accuses the movement of masterminding the coup while the latter denies involvement.

Some 150,000 have lost their jobs, more than 126,000 have been detained and some 56,000 including academics, judges, doctors, teachers, lawyers, students, policemen and many from different backgrounds have been put in pre-trial detention since last summer.

Many tried to escape Turkey via illegal ways as the government cancelled their passports like thousands of others.