Almost 1,000 officers removed from post in İzmir, Ankara


Date posted: February 20, 2014

 

İSTANBUL

Around 700 police officers, including four deputy chiefs and 70 high-ranking officials, were removed from their posts at the İzmir Police Department and reassigned to different positions on Thursday morning and removals continued later in the afternoon with 207 more officers, including police chiefs, being removed from their posts at the Ankara Police Department’s Counterterrorism Unit.

Removals began soon after a major corruption investigation became public on Dec. 17 and led to the resignation of three ministers and the replacement of a fourth by the prime minister.

The four deputy chiefs from the İzmir Police Department, who have been recently reassigned, Mehmet Ali Şevik, Halil İbrahim Karazeybek, Vahit Bektaş and Ramazan Karakaya, are reportedly the officials who conducted the operation into alleged tender-rigging and fraud at the Port of İzmir. The four deputies who were removed from their posts were appointed to posts at police schools.

Similarly, İzmir Police Chief Sami Uslu was removed from his post and assigned to a post at the National Police Department in Ankara on Feb. 11. Uslu had been assigned to the top post at the İzmir Police Department on Jan. 10 after a fast-moving investigation into allegations of tender-rigging and fraud at the Port of İzmir came to light.

The İzmir police chief was reassigned twice in less than a month. He was reassigned to a post in Ankara in the previous round of reshuffling within Turkey’s police force since a major corruption investigation became public.

The sweeping changes and purge within the police force reflect a mood of panic in the government, which is trying to portray the graft probe as a plot to undermine it ahead of critical local polls.

More than 7,000 police officers, including hundreds of police chiefs, have been removed from their posts. A majority of them have been demoted to less significant positions within the country’s police departments.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reacted furiously to the corruption investigation, decrying an attempted “judicial coup” his supporters see as orchestrated by the Hizmet movement. He has reassigned thousands of police officers, more than a hundred judges and prosecutors, and purged official bodies of executives he suspects of being close to Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Source: Todays Zaman , February 20, 2014


Related News

A Turkish couple spent their wedding day feeding 4,000 Syrian refugees

Hatice Avci, a spokesperson for aid organisation Kimse Yok Mu, told i100.co.uk that last Thursday the newlyweds donated the savings their families had put together for a party to share their wedding celebrations with the refugees living in and around the town of Kilis.

Kimse Yok Mu to distribute 90,000 food packages during Ramadan

The Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There) charity foundation will be offering aid packages to 90,000 families in all the 81 provinces during the holy month of Ramadan. The fasting month of Ramadan, deemed the sultan of all the months by Muslims, is considered the most venerated, blessed and spiritually beneficial month of the Islamic […]

GYV Declaration: The AKP and Hizmet on democracy

The Hizmet movement’s Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) released a statement on its website on Thursday in which it said it is worried about the profiling of citizens, civic groups and public employees. It demanded that all the legislation that is reminiscent of the old, anti-democratic Turkey must be revised to ensure their full compliance with fundamental rights and freedoms.

Interview with Gulen in Kenya’s Daily Nation

I don’t believe that I have a special mission. I am trying to be able to be a human being among other human beings. The honor God has granted us as “humanity” is sufficient for me.

Fethullah Gulen — A view from Israel

A Muslim religious leader, Fethullah Gulen, is daily in the news, as Turkish president Erdogan accuses him of plotting the recent coup, We are so used to Muslim clerics being or being considered terrorists that we give the matter little thought. And yet, the recent crackdown in Turkey on Gulen’s movement should be of grave concern to anyone who cares about the Middle East, about Islam, and about religion.

Turkish preacher isn’t running terrorist gang

Given the popularity of the Hizmet across the world and lack of evidence that Gülen is indeed linked to terrorism, I believe it will be unequivocally impossible to confirm that the movement is a “separatist terrorist organization,” as claimed by the Turkish president. Gülen always makes a broad social critique of violence, terrorism and racism, while promoting social justice, harmony and peace.

Latest News

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

University refuses admission to woman jailed over Gülen links

In Case You Missed It

South Africa is not a hunting ground for Erdogan

Countering Violent Extremism Symposium draws significant participation

Turkish charities take benevolence across borders during Eid al-Adha

Pro-gov’t journo says Gülen followers were abducted, illegally questioned by Turkey’s intelligence agency

Too Good to Be True

Cultural diaspora

Hundreds of thousands homeless as Turkey’s southeast lay in ruins

Copyright 2024 Hizmet News