Woman says husband abducted after losing job in post-coup crackdown

Date posted: April 10, 2017

A recently established Twitter account claims in a series of tweets that Turgut Çapan, a former employee of Turgut Özal University, which was shut down by the government, was abducted in Turkey’s capital of Ankara.

The @CapanAilesi (CapanFamily) Twitter account is run by Ülkü Çapan, a housewife in Ankara’s Keçiören district who got involved in social media only after her husband was allegedly abducted.

She posted her first tweet on April 8, saying: “I want you to hear our voice regarding my husband’s abduction. Please pay attention @MTanal @MSTanrikulu @aykuterdogdu. Our entire family is wretched.” The names she mentioned are the three most outspoken deputies of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Ülkü also released a video clip in which she explained the story in detail. She said a friend of her husband dropped by her home on April 1 to say that Turgut had been abducted. According to Mahmut Ozpinar, former academic at Turgut Ozal University, Turgut was the head of the Culture, Sport and Art Affairs Department at the university until it was closed down by the government.

Turgut Özal University is among hundreds of educational institutions that the government shuttered a week after a military coup attempt on July 15, 2016. The schools and universities are claimed to have been affiliated with the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of devising the coup plot. Some 113,000 people have been detained and 47,000 arrested due to alleged links to the movement so far, raising concerns over the lack of due diligence during both investigation and prosecution.

While the reason for the alleged abduction is yet to be known, earlier tips submitted to Turkey Purge as well as a number of other media articles reported on several mysterious incidents of abduction involving Gülen followers or others from groups critical of the Turkish government.

Two Turkish men, one a teacher and the other a businessman, were abducted by Turkish intelligence officers in Malaysia, according to a tip provided by family members to Turkey Purge in mid-October of last year.

Meanwhile, left-wing Turkish newspaper Evrensel reported on Jan. 10 that Zeynep Tunçel, a reader and distributor, was abducted and beaten by a group of unidentified people who accused her of resisting the government.

As Turgut’s story went viral on social media over the weeken, another woman, named Fatma Asan, claimed on a separate Twitter account on April 8 that her husband Onder Asan, a philosophy teacher has also been missing since April 1.

Source: Turkey Purge , April 9, 2017