
Turkish autocratic President Erdoğan’s former speechwriter and current Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Aydın Ünal wrote on Tuesday that the witch hunt against the alleged followers of the Gülen movement in Turkey will eventually become severe as a result of the Zarrab case in the US.

When the body of the 5-year-old Aylan Kurdi was found in the Greek island of Kos in 2015, Turkish president Erdoğan said: “What has drowned in the Mediterranean is not only the refugees. Humanity has drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.” However, President Erdoğan didn’t say a word about Turkish family’s tragedy, who were fleeing from the persecution of his own regime this time.

Ali Osman Karahan, an 87-year-old Turkish man who has been kept in an Isparta prison for almost 15 months over alleged links to Turkey’s Gülen group, was given 11-day solitary confinement for relieving other inmates by saying: “if you are not guilty, you will be released one day.”

A new report from the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) titled “Tortured to Death” exposes the case of 42-year-old history teacher Gökhan Açıkkollu. The report details every day he was kept in custody, where he was repeatedly beaten. The government documents, medical reports, independent opinions and witness statements obtained by SCF show his death was not due to natural causes.

A Turkish family of five has reportedly drowned after a boat capsized in the Aegean Sea, off the western coast of Turkey, according to several Turkish media outlets. The victims have reportedly been sought by the Turkish government over their links to the Gülen group.

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.

She was telling me about the event and I was about to explain that she needed to send something in writing and we’d be happy to put it in the appropriate calendars of events. Then she caught my ear: Turkish cooking class … at a Presbyterian church … as a fundraiser for Puerto Rico? Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Vakkas Doğantekin, a pro-government columnist and the president of the California-based Turkish community organization, TURCA, has attacked a Turkish speaking ice-cream seller by calling him “terrorist” and “dogs of jews.”