An Ankara-based rights organization on Thursday released a report delving into the allegations of enforced disappearances and torture that took place in Turkey since the 2016 coup bid. The report reads in its conclusion that out of 28 cases of disappearance, 26 were connected to the persecution of alleged Gulenists, while suggesting at least 16 of them were detained in the capital city of Ankara.
A report titled Mass Torture and Ill-Treatment in Turkey which was published in June 2017 by the Sweden-based Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF), declared that the torture, abuse, and ill-treatment of detainees and prisoners in Turkey have become the norm rather than the exception.
Huseyin Sahnaz is seriously worried about his wife and infant child. After all, prisons are not exactly family-friendly institutions. Both have to share a cell with 30 other inmates. And temperatures during this time of year tend to reach 30 degrees Celsius (around 90 Fahrenheit) or higher.
In a near-repeat of the CIA’s ‘extraordinary renditions’, the regime of Turkish president Erdoğan is kidnapping dozens of members of the Gülen movement from around the world. Victims are now raising a serious accusation: secret torture sites are part of the repression. A team of nine media organizations from eight countries, coordinated by CORRECTIV, investigates.
Extraditing dissident Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen to Turkey would be a betrayal of American values and should be permanently off the table. President Trump says that handing over Gulen to Turkey is not under consideration “at this point.” But that’s not good enough.
Gökhan Açıkkollu, a history teacher suffering from diabetes, died of torture in police custody as part of a post-coup investigation into Turkey’s Gülen group. He was found innocent one-and-a-half years later and “reinstated” to his job a year later.
She could stay in Turkey where she might end up imprisoned, at risk of torture and sexual assault, and separated from her young children. Or she could take them on a dangerous journey, with no guarantee of survival.
Halime Gülsu, who was arrested on Feb. 20, 2018 for allegedly helping the faith-based Gülen movement, died on Saturday in prison in Mersin province, reportedly due to deprivation of the medication she took for lupus erythematosus.