Turkey Purge

Court jails 17 police officers, issues detention warrant for 60 others over Gülen links

Arrests warrants were issued for 60 previously dismissed police officers as 17 others were arrested in a separate operation over allefed use of a smart phone application named ByLock. ByLock is onsidered a “secret messaging system” among Gülen movement sympathizers. The application was available for all on the internet. The police officers were arrested in province […]

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Wife of prosecutor who launched 2013 corruption probe arrested over coup charges

Özlem Yüzgeç, the wife of one of the prosecutors who conducted a corruption probe that became public in late 2013 and implicated senior members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, was arrested in Kahramanmaraş province over use of a smart phone application known as ByLock. Yüzgeç is the wife of Mehmet Yüzgeç, one

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65-year-old grandmother looking after twin babies as mother, father in jail for 5 months

Twin daughters of the Istanbul-based Şengün family were handed over to their 65-year-old grandmother as both E. Şengün and his wife F. were arrested after being kept under detention for 30 days, on Nov. 2, 2016. The children were only 7-months-old when their parents were jailed and they are about to turn one with no

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Detention warrants issued for 265 students, civilians in 20 cities

Detention warrants were issued for 265 people including students and what the government calls group leaders, as part of an Ankara-based probe against the Gülen movement on Tuesday. The government accuses the movement for the July 15 coup attempt while the latter denies any role. Police carried out operations in 20 provinces and have rounded

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21-year-old student in jail after his ‘No’ video goes viral ahead of prez referendum

Twenty-one years old university student Ali Gül was arrested days after a video he appeared in as part of a No campaign went viral in the run up to the presidential referendum. The referendum, scheduled to take place on April 16, is set to introduce a shift from parliamentary power to the executive presidency and

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Gov’t critics abroad stay away from Turkish consulates, fearing persecution

The German daily Die Welt has documented the cases of harassment by Turkish consulate officials against certain opposition groups: The Gülen movement, Kurds and Alevites. “Reports of Turkish citizens who are harassed in the consulates are accumulating – not just in Germany,” a recent report said before adding: “For example, a Turkish teacher with an

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Access to column banned after complaint by pro-Erdoğan media owner

A Turkish court has banned online access to a column by Ceren Sözeri that had been published in the Evrensel daily last year after pro-government businessman Ethem Sancak, who owns the Esmedya group and is known for his staunch support for Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, filed a complaint against the paper over “the

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