It was believed in 2016 that Erdoğan was carrying out a witch hunt to drive Hizmet into the ground so as to completely erase its history in Turkey. However, that witch hunt never seemed to stop. In fact, it continues even today. The most recent examples are Kenya and Kyrgyzstan.
On May 31, Orhan Inandi, a Turkish-born educator and Kyrgyz citizen who founded a popular school network in Kyrgyzstan went missing in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. After his car was found five miles from his house, all its doors open and tires flattened, his families contacted Kyrgyz authorities.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg sent an official request to Albania asking it not to deport a Turkish citizen who is known to be a follower of the Gülen movement to Turkey as his trial has not been concluded in Albania, the Tirana Times reported.
Several schools formerly run by the Gülen movement in Albania have been the subject of growing government pressure in recent weeks. On Oct. 28 the campus of the Turgut Özal School was raided by Albanian police without any court order or warrant, and excessive force was used in the presence of students.
“Nate Schenkkan is with Freedom House and an expert on Turkey. He says Gülenists have been left jobless, with no chance of restarting their careers. “For the vast majority of the people in the Gülen movement, it’s quite clear. They had nothing to do with any of this, whether it’s the coup attempt or any other kind of violence,” he said.
The findings of IRB indicated that detainees in Turkey have faced different forms of torture and ill-treatment. They include severe beatings, threats of sexual assault and actual sexual assault, electric shocks, waterboarding, punches/kicking, blows with objects, falaqa [foot beating], threats and verbal abuse, being forced to strip naked, rape with objects and other sexual violence or threats thereof, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and extended blindfolding and/or handcuffing for several days.
A professor of communications, Muttalip Kutluk Özgüven, has said followers of the Gülen movement should be sent to rehabilitation camps and subjected to psychological treatment. “Their bodies do not belong to them. They have to serve Turkey’s interests,” he said.