Exiled Turks Fleeing Erdogan Find New Lives in Greece

FILE - Turkish military officers (C) escorted by Greek police officers, arrive at the Supreme Court in Athens. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis, FILE)
FILE - Turkish military officers (C) escorted by Greek police officers, arrive at the Supreme Court in Athens. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis, FILE)


Date posted: February 13, 2019

By TNH Staff

Turks who fled the wrath of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after a failed coup against him in July, 2016 have landed in Greece seeking asylum and integrating themselves into society as many are educated professionals, unlike many refugees and migrants finding themselves locked in detention centers and camps.  

The new Turkish arrivals, many of them lawyers, doctors, engineers and authors, are concentrated in the center of Greece’s capital, the independent Turkish news site Ahval reported in a feature on their resettlement, adding that there are also 4,000 in the second-largest city and major port of Thessaloniki.

Many have been accused of membership in the Gülen movement, a religious group led by cleric Fethullah Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who Turkey accuses of mastermindin the failed coup which led Erdogan to purge civil society and the military and thousands land in jail on what critics said were trumped-up charges.

The Turkish government had previously arrested some 77,000 people over links to Gülen, while another 150,000 civil servants, military personnel and others have been sacked from the government in the crackdown Erdogan said was aimed at sectors he said were threats.

Those Ankara has accused of links to Gülen may not even be safe abroad, dozens of alleged Gülen members around the world have been arrested and deported back to Turkey, said Ahval, with even New York Knicks player Enes Kanter believing he’s a target.

Ahval spoke to a number of Turks living in Greece, who all rejected the charge of membership in a terrorist organisation and were fearful of Turkey’s reach abroad to get at them and other Turkish citizens.

Some said they were targeted for having bank accounts with Bank Asya, a Turkish bank affiliated with the Gülen movement that the government shut down following the failed coup. Others said they had sent their children to a Gülen-linked school, which numbered in the thousands in Turkey before the coup attempt.

Some Turks now in Greece had worked for Gülen-connected media outlets. Before July 2016, many newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations in Turkey were affiliated with the movement.

most Turks in Thessaloniki are not looking to stay in Greece, but are hoping to reach northern European countries, where they expect to find greater opportunity, the site said.

Melih, a Turk living in Thessaloniki, said that Turks who make it across the Evros River party are kept in detention for two days, then taken to a special section in migrant camps.

Source: The National Herald , February 13, 2019


Related News

Nigeria demands Turkey’s apology over ‘unjustifiable’ students deportation in coup crackdown

Nigerian lawmakers have urged the Turkish government to apologise for arresting and deporting dozens of Nigerian students. The majority of the youths attended the Fatih University, which is among thousands of educational buildings Turkey has shut down in a crackdown following the failed coup.

Kerry: Turkish President’s Insinuation of US Role in Attempted Coup is ‘Harmful to Our Bilateral Relations’

John Kerry: We invite the government of Turkey, as we always do, to present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny. And the United States will accept that and look at it and make judgments about it appropriately.”

The Fall of Turkey

Western officials have preferred to raise concerns over the steady dismantling of Turkey’s free institutions only privately with their counterparts in Ankara. This approach has failed. That failure has left many millions of pro-democracy Turks to fend for themselves, while a once-fringe ideological element in the AKP, reared on Islamist supremacism, has been emboldened.

İstanbul municipality tears down part of school in midnight operation

The İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality sent teams in the early hours of Tuesday morning to the private Fatih College in the Merter neighborhood to demolish the wall of the school as well as a security cabin in the school’s courtyard.

International Workshop – Hizmet Movement between Political Islam and Civil Islam

Hizmet-inspired European organizations are organizing an international conference to be held in November 2017 in Amsterdam. The workshop will examine the Hizmet Movement in the realm of political Islam and civil Islam.

The Community has infiltrated the European Court of Human Rights as well!

This title will clearly sound absurd and nonsensical for a normal person. As a matter of fact, it is not intended for the people who, like you, are in perfect mental health and who can think reasonably and normally. It is for those paranoid people who are obsessed with the “Community” (the Hizmet movement, also known as Gulen movement)

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

EU anti-terror chief: Gülen network not terrorist organization

Culture Day Celebrated In The Turkish Schools

Welcome to the Republic of Paranoia

Turkish students win most awards at int’l math contest

Abant Platform discusses terror at UN headquarters in Vienna

German Lawmakers Call for Probe on Imams Suspected of Spying for Turkey

The system is the root cause of corruption

Copyright 2023 Hizmet News