60-year-old Turkish villager detained after questioning gov’t coup narrative
Date posted: November 21, 2017
Murat Gulen, a 60-year-old villager and a relative of Fethullah Gulen was detained after he was revealed questioning the government’s narrative over the July 15, 2016 coup attempt during a video interview by the pro-government Ihlas News Agency.
On Thursday, Ihlas published the video recording, filmed in Fethullah Gulen’s hometown of Korucuk village, and media reported the same day that Gulen was taken into police custody for questioning.
Turkish government accuses the Gulen movement of masterminding the failed takeover while the latter denies involvement. More than 130,000 were held in custody and some 60,000 of them were remanded in pretrial detention over Gulen ties so far.
Evidence of Gulen links include depositing money into the movement-affliated, now-defunct Bank Asya, as mentioned by the villager during the interview.
Many were earlier targeted for raising question marks over the government’s narrative.
In a recent press conference, Ambassador Devrim Öztürk claimed that some Turkish nationals in Dhaka, in particular those working at the Turkish Hope School, were involved with what he called the Gülenist Terror Organisation (FETÖ). Foreign Ministry officials who spoke to the Dhaka Tribune said they saw the ambassador’s request as a violation of diplomatic norms.
Turkish business suffers under Erdogan’s post-coup Gulen purge
Critics of the ruling AKP expect it to sell Gulen-linked companies to government allies in the business world at a large discount. In mid-October the AKP-linked Metro Holding applied to the TMSF to acquire all of Koza Ipek Holding’s shares. Akin Ipek, the fugitive former owner of the conglomerate, asked on Twitter how Koza Ipek’s $600 million in cash and $20 billion in mining assets could be acquired by a comparatively unimpressive entity. Metro Holding’s capital comes to just over $95 million.
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EU lends support to mosque-cemevi project
The European Union, which has been closely following the rights of Alevis in Turkey for years, has lent its support to a mosque-cemevi project to be built in Ankara. The European Commission said it supported dialogue that led to mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence, calling these principles the “hallmark of the EU.” Peter Stano, the spokesperson […]
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