
A major new contribution to the human rights literature on contemporary Türkiye has been released with the publication of Erdoğan’s Civil Death PROJECT – Persecution of the Hizmet Movement in Türkiye, authored by civil rights scholar Prof. James C. Harrington and international human rights attorney Coşkun Yorulmaz.

Gülen’s core message was the primacy of service, that is, the “most meaningful way to express one’s faith is through positive action,” Yorulmaz says, such as building schools, delivering relief, partnering across differences.

The Turkey Tribunal, a civil society-led, symbolic international tribunal established to adjudicate recent human rights violations in Turkey, started proceedings in Geneva on Monday where rapporteurs pointed to the use of systematic torture by the government against alleged members of the faith-based Gülen movement and Kurds.

In the first chapter of his book: “A Genocide in the Making?” Zooming on “Erdogan’s regime crackdown on the Gulen Movement”, Dr. Bulent Kenes clearly refers to “genocide” as a set of “systematic violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to terminate their existence.”

Yusuf Özmen, a cancer patient who has been sentenced to 8 years, 9 months in prison due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement, has recently been sent back to prison after the supreme court of appeals upheld the prison sentence.

Fatma Yurt, a 64-year-old Turkish woman who is confined to bed, is in the 17th month of her imprisonment over alleged links to the Gulen group, which the government of accused of masterminding a coup attempt in July 2016.

Arzu Nur Özkan, a former teacher, has been in Bünyan Prison in Kayseri province for the last four months for alleged links to the Gülen movement despite being six months pregnant. Özkan is experiencing complications related to her pregnancy and is frequently put in quarantine cells because of her hospital visits.

Abductions, forceful disappearances, tortures, and political target killings have always been among the burning human rights violations in Turkey; however, they skyrocketed during Erdogan’s rule and especially after the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.