Turkey just snatched six of its citizens from another country


Date posted: April 1, 2018

Nate Schenkkan

On Thursday morning, six Turkish men who were living in Kosovo suddenly disappeared.

That afternoon, a Turkish state news agency published photos of the six looking disheveled and standing next to Turkish flags; it wasn’t clear where the pictures were taken. The news story accompanying the images said the men were high-ranking members of the Gulen movement, a former ally of the Turkish government that officials now accuse of trying to overthrow the state since at least 2013. The report claimed that the men had been “arrested” in an operation between Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and Kosovo’s intelligence agency, and that they had already been brought back to Turkey on a private plane.

But were they? For more than two days after the first public reports of the arrests, it was unclear whether they were in Turkey or still in Kosovo but somehow in Turkish custody. Only on Saturday morning were they clearly confirmed to be in Turkey. As the alleged deportations began to look increasingly like outright abductions, they have become a real-time example of the threat posed by Ankara’s flagrant disregard for international norms. Countries that host Turkish citizens all over the world should be on notice that Ankara’s efforts to track down its opponents overseas poses a threat to their domestic rule of law.

In the first reports, Turkish and Kosovar officials claimed that the men had been deported to Turkey. Yet their lawyers were never given access to them, and neither country’s authorities gave proof of their location or condition to the men’s families in Kosovo. That fueled rumors that they might still be in the country, perhaps inside the Turkish Embassy or at the airport in Pristina, the capital. Their rights have clearly been violated. They were detained without access to a lawyer or the ability to contest the reasons for their detention and deportation. And they were rendered to the custody of a country where ill treatment and torture of the government’s opponents are common.

The Pristina abductions are merely the latest episode of Turkey’s global purge, the government’s campaign to pursue its opponents all over the world, which began in 2014 but has accelerated dramatically since the coup attempt of July 2016. In this time, Turkey has repeatedly resorted to extralegal means to target its perceived opponents abroad. Media monitoring shows at least 15 countries on three continents where Turkey’s pressure led to arrests or deportations. In five countries, Turkish citizens who had sought asylum were sent back to Turkey before their request was processed, a violation of international law. In at least three other countries, Turkey’s intelligence agency appears to have been involved in operations to extra-judicially render people from other countries to Turkey. Turkey’s media has also previously reported about the formation of a special MIT team to hunt Gulenists abroad.

Kosovo’s prime minister, president and chairman of parliament initially said that the operation was conducted without their knowledge. The minister of interior and the head of Kosovo’s intelligence have already been dismissed, but the crisis may not stop there, as the events call into question the integrity of state institutions among Kosovars and the government’s subordination to foreign powers. The opposition has called for a parliamentary investigation into the events. On Saturday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj and called on Kosovo’s citizens to bring him to account for having the gall to object to a Turkish operation on Kosovo’s territory.

The idea that Turkish intelligence would brazenly abduct its citizens from a country with which it has putatively good relations is a shocking offense against both international human rights standards and bilateral norms. Turkey’s allies are once again witnessing just how Ankara values its bilateral relationships. The practice of taking citizens of its allies as hostages — as Turkey has done with Germany and the United States — was bad enough. Now Ankara is demonstrating its willingness to abduct Turkish citizens from a friendly country’s territory.

The Pristina events also throw into sharp relief the implications of Turkey’s global purge for the dozens of countries all over the world where accused Turkish dissidents have gathered — a group that may number in the hundreds of thousands, given the guilt-by-association criteria that Ankara is applying domestically and abroad in its “anti-terrorism” operations against academics, Kurdish activists, journalists and the Gulen movement. With reports of Turkish intelligence activities in multiple countries, including other kidnapping plots, governments should become much more willing to offer Turkish citizens asylum and must look very skeptically upon Turkish government requests for arrest and extradition.

In his first speech referring to the operation on Friday, Erdogan applauded the Kosovo operation, saying, “Wherever they may go, we will wrap them up and bring them here, God willing. And here they will be held to account.” Turkey is seemingly willing to violate international law to do just that. Every country where Turkish citizens seek refuge should be mindful.


Nate Schenkkan works for Freedom House, where he directs the Nations in Transit project, an annual survey of democratic governance from Central Europe to Eurasia.

Source: Washington Post , April 1, 2018


Related News

Pak-Turk schools hold graduates moot

The school administration believes that the action is taken to appease Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who believes that the school promotes and teaches his arch-rival and cleric Fetullah Gulen’s teachings. “We have gone through the school curriculum during our time and have not found them imparting any extremism ideology or anything that goes against the interests of Pakistan,” said one of the graduates.

MHP deputy dismissed gang allegations against Hizmet Movement

“[Hizmet Movement] is very transparent under the surveillance of the government. You would go a great wrong if you accuse [Gülen] as a gang affiliated person without any verdict of conviction by a prosecutor,” stated Yılmaz.

Cold Turkey: Erdogan’s withdrawal from democracy

The bizarre, phantom-like failed coup d’etat staged against Erdoğan’s increasingly brutal regime on July 15 last year saw him seize the opportunity to exterminate, imprison and purge tens of thousands of his enemies, real and imagined, within all strata of civil society, the military, government, media, education, health, the judiciary and other institutions.

Gülen offers condolences for slain İstanbul resident shot at protest

Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has offered condolences for Uğur Kurt, a 34-year-old who was waiting to attend a funeral outside a cemevi, an Alevi house of worship, was hit by a stray bullet allegedly from a police weapon and died in hospital on Thursday night.

From Islamophobia to ‘Hizmet-phobia’

An important person who was praising an intellectual in Northwest Africa said, “I wish we [Turkey] had such scholars with far-reaching foresight.” He was right, because the intellectual that he mentioned provides an excellent example for others in his works and lifestyle. But he was also wrong in a sense, because we have several scholars […]

Turkey cooperating with Israel to help Gaza

Diplomatic sources confirmed that an official from the Turkish Red Crescent went to Israel to coordinate humanitarian aid to be sent to Gaza. “There is no other way to provide aid to Gaza,” said the sources on Thursday. Dismissing claims that the Turkish official will be negotiating a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza, sources said Turkey is only in contact with the officials from Hamas and the US regarding the Palestinian territory.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

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

In Case You Missed It

A Case for Why Gulen Would Never Support a Coup

[Alleged] “Coup leader” Gülen’s friendships with the Catholic Church

A destructive option for Turkey takes shape

Conceptual contradictions when it comes to rhetoric about ‘parallel state’

Turkish and Australian organizations discuss multiculturalism

Turkish preacher isn’t running terrorist gang

FM Davutoğlu says Turkish schools abroad play important representative role

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News