Moldova Rights Activists Target Erdogan at Football Match


Date posted: September 12, 2019

Madalin Necsutu

Moldovan rights activists used a football match with Turkey on Tuesday to stage a brief protest against the highly controversial extradition to Turkey in 2018 of seven teachers.

Human rights activists from the “Occupy Guguta” movement in Moldova unveiled a banner on Tuesday night at the national football match between Moldova and Turkey, with a critical message for the authoritarian Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The activists at the Zimbru Stadium in Chisinau urged Erdogan to release seven Turkish teachers working in Moldova who were taken back to Turkey by force in September 2018 in a joint operation of the Moldovan and Turkish secret services.

“Erdogan, give us back our professors!” the activists wrote on their banner.

The seven teachers belonged to the private Orizont chain of high schools in Moldova, which are affiliated to the Hizmet movement of the exiled Turkish cleric and Erdogan foe Fetthulah Gulen – who Erdogan blames for a failed coup in 2016. Gulen, who lives in the US, has denied all connection with the affair.

The Turkish citizens were seized in an alleged deal between Erdogan and the pro-Russian President of Moldova, Igor Dodon, and the Moldovan oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, who then de facto ran the ruling Democratic Party-led government in Moldova.

====== RELATED NEWS ======

Extradition of Turkish Citizens: Moldova to pay 125,000 euros in damages for rights violations

==========================

Andrei Lutenco, an activist with Occupy Guguta movement, told BIRN that the banner was posted for about ten minutes until the private security at the stadium came and forced them to take it down.

“They did not invoke any reason, they just came and said take it down. They didn’t explain why. At one point they ripped it [banner] from out of my hands. The security became a little violent and strong-armed my colleague, though it was not so serious,” he said.

Lutenco added that his colleague had filed a complaint to the police about the incident.

“I hope the message will get to the Turkish press also because we can do nothing here for those teachers, but those there can save their lives and return them to their families,” another activist, Ion Andronache, said on Facebook.

A deputy from the governing pro-Western ACUM bloc, which is in coalition with the Socialists, Dumitru Alaiba, said freedom of speech should be respected in Moldova.

“The message on the banner may or may not be liked. The regulations may be different. The problem resides in how to act in respect of the right of people to express themselves freely in a free country,” he said on Facebook.

The present Moldovan parliament is now investigating the suspicious case conducted last year by former Moldovan officials together with the Moldovan Security and Intelligence Service SIS.

The General Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday said the former deputy director of the SIS, Alexandru Baltaga, detained at the end of last week over the expulsion case, would remain for the next 30 days under house arrest.

Olga Poalelungi, head of the Bureau of Migration and Asylum in Moldova, has also been charged with overstepping her official duties, with serious consequences.

Source: Balkan Insight , September 11, 2019


Related News

Nine-year-old beats 25,000 others in Maths competition

A NINE-year-old pupil of the Nigerian Turkish School, Abuja, Adeoluwa Adetoba, has emerged winner of the 2015 edition of the National Mathematics Competition.

Erdoğan hampers girls’ education [by shutting down prep schools run by the Hizmet movement]

Adalet Binici, a 14-year-old Kurdish girl in eighth grade, became the champion in last year’s Level Determination Examination (SBS), a high school placement test administered by the Turkish government to over a million students nationwide, thanks to the supplementary education and training provided by a prep school run by the Hizmet movement that is inspired by education-savvy Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

Ethiopian President receives Ethio-Turkish schools delegation

Board members of Nejashi Ethio-Turkish International Schools recently paid a courtesy visit to the newly elected Ethiopian President, Dr. Mulatu Teshome, in his presidential office. A former ambassador of Ethiopia to Ankara, Teshome warmly received the board members of the schools, which have been operating in the country for nine years, currently with 1,300 students […]

Turkish authorities unlawfully arrest woman with twin babies over alleged Gülen links

Turkish authorities yesterday arrested Merve Hande Kayış, the mother of three children including 13-month-old twins, for alleged links to the Gülen movement in violation of the country’s laws.

Fears for Gulen-inspired Turkish schools in Pakistan grow

Maarif, the foundation that Pak-Turk schools to be transferred to, was set up by Turkish parliament and is an education foundation based on divisive political ideology and racism. It is founded by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkey to consign AKP’s partisan mentality and political ideology to Islamic and developing countries.

Pakistan admits they secretly deported Turkish family wanted by Erdogan govt

The Pakistan government on Tuesday admitted before the Lahore High Court that it had secretly deported a Turkish family wanted by the Erdogan government, in violation of the court’s order.

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

Woman miscarried twins in prison, dead bodies not returned to family

Fil-Turkish gives out beef amid terror threats

In rare interview: Fethullah Gulen rebukes Turkish regime

Parents Of Afghan-Turk Students To Lodge Complaint Against National Directorate of Security

The consequences of tyranny never change

Nigeria wants more Turkish schools to increase quality of education

The Hizmet (Gulen) movement and transparency

Copyright 2023 Hizmet News