Turkey Purge

Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office has issued detention warrants for 243 military personnel over their alleged use of ByLock, a smartphone messaging application which the government claims to be the top communication tool of the Gülen movement, on Wednesday. The government accuses the movement of organizing a coup attempt on July 15 while the latter denies […]

Kadir Güntepe, former governor of the Beytüşşebap district of the southeastern province of Şırnak, was detained on charges of using ByLock, a smart phone application that authorities believe is a communication tool between members of the Gülen movement. Police teams reportedly conducted a search of a house belonging to Güntepe and seized some documents. Media

Turkish police continue to detain more people from all walks of life over alleged links to the Gülen movement, which the Turkish government accuses of masterminding a coup attempt on July 15. In İzmir, a total of 41 civilians were detained on Tuesday on charges of using ByLock, a smart phone application that authorities believe

Serkan Gölge, a 36-year-old physicist and research scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the US, has been held under solitary confinement in Turkey over coup charges. Dual citizen of the US and Turkey, Gölge was detained as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of organizing a

Pro-government journalist Cemil Barlas tweeted on Monday that the 4 years old child of the recently-captured main suspect in deadly gun attack on Istanbul’s Reina night club should be used to get the father talk. Police rounded up Abdulkadir Masharipov, the alleged attacker who killed 39 people at Reina, along with four others in İstanbul’s

Ünal Tanık, the editor in chief of the government-closed Rotahaber news portal was detained as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of organizing a coup attempt on July 15, on Tuesday. Police detained Tanık in Yalova province and were ordered to take him to İstanbul for his testimony. The

The European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre (EU INTCEN) said in a recent report dated Aug. 24 that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan planned to purge opposition forces in the military before July’s attempted coup. EU’s intelligence-sharing bureau said the coup attempt was a result of fear among Erdoğan’s critics in the military. Intcen said it is

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday called on Turkish banks to open up the “loan taps” to entrepreneurs or face the consequences. Speaking at his lavish palace in Ankara during a ceremony, Erdoğan threatened Turkish banks, saying, “If the owners in the [banking] sector do not open up the taps of loans for investors, they

A total of six Turkish journalists have been kept in police custody since Dec. 25, according to the Evrensel daily. Police teams detained the six journalists — DİHA news manager Ömer Çelik, one of the editors of the Diken news portal, Tunca Öğreten, the Birgün daily’s accounting supervisor Mahir Kanaat, DİHA reporter Metin Yoksu, the

In screenshots from a new video reportedly released by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a militant in black is seen freely walking around İstanbul’s famed tourist sites, including the Bosporus and the 400-year-old Sultan Ahmed Mosque, popularly known as the Blue Mosque. In the video an ISIL militant is shown from