Oppositionists have been abducted from abroad in Turkey for years.
Human rights activists speak of "transnational repression".
Ankara - Five years ago opposition activists launched a coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and failed - since then they have been hunted around the world.
As research by several media outlets has shown, the government is systematically kidnapping political opponents from abroad.
The president boasts of his kidnappings, but there are no sanctions against it.
They break into houses and kidnap men on the street: Erdogan's “state kidnappers”.
It was not until May that the nephew of the Turkish opposition activist Fethullah Gülen was arrested in Nairobi.
Fethullah Gülen is a Turkish Islamic preacher whom President Erdogan blames for the attempted coup in 2016 and who has since been called and hunted by Turkey as a terrorist.
Gülen and Erdogan were once political allies, but since they split up, his supporters have also been threatened.
President Erdogan hunts opposition members abroad
Time and again the media report on the kidnapping of Turkish opposition activists abroad. The most recent case, according to reports in
Der Spiegel, is
that of a school principal of Turkish origin who lived in Kyrgyzstan. Orhan Inandı ran schools in the Gülen network in Bishkek. In many countries these schools had to be closed due to pressure from the Turkish government. As the
Spiegel
reports, the Gülen functionary was kidnapped by Turkish agents in the street - for a month there was no trace of him.
At first, the government denied being responsible for Inandi's disappearance.
In July, according to media reports, President Erdogan confirmed that his agents had kidnapped the man and brought him to Turkey.
As
reported by
the
Tagesspiegel
, Erdogan said in a cabinet meeting that Inandi was the “Central Asia representative of the Fethullah Gülen terror organization”.
"With these recent arrests, we have proven once again that there is nowhere in the world for these terrorists a safe place," said Erdogan.
The Turkish President had confirmed that the government had already arrested more than a hundred people.
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Fethullah Gülen is one of the opposition members who are being hunted down by the Turkish government.
His followers are also affected.
(Archive image)
© Tom Gralish via www.imago-images.de
Human rights organizations speak of "transnational repression"
The human rights organization “Freedom House” calls this type of kidnapping “transnational repression”.
“The term transnational oppression is used to denote attacks on exiles or diasporas by the governments of the countries that have left them - that is, assassinations and assassinations, kidnappings and abductions, attacks as well as illegal renditions and imprisonments”, explains “Freedom House”.
A study published by Freedom House in spring 2021 shows that transnational oppression is a global problem: the study counted 31 countries of origin that persecute exiles.
In addition, there are 79 countries around the world that are cooperating in the persecution of opposition members.
A total of 3.5 million people are at risk from transnational persecution.
Many authoritarian states invoke the "war on terror" in their persecution, as Freedom House explains.
After the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, it was coined by the American government to persecute and apprehend Islamist extremists.
Governments around the world are now using this term to imprison or extradite their political opponents without a legal basis.
Turkey kidnaps political opponents - and President Erdogan publicly boasts about it
In an international comparison, according to the Freedom House, Turkey is the country that kidnaps the most dissidents.
According to
Deutschlandfunk
, the
United Nations also reports
on numerous countries that support Turkey, especially in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
According to Freedom House, the victims of the acts of violence are especially supporters of the Gülen network, supporters of the Kurds and the political left.
But the kidnappings are not covered up: President Erdogan announces them publicly, government media celebrate the government's “success”. As Nate Shenkkan of “Freedom House”
told
Deutschlandfunk
, this is unusual even among repressive states. “This is a new quality for Turkey and for the world. We are dealing with a country that is openly boasting about its kidnapping campaign ”.
So far, Erdogan's agents have not ventured into the European Union, but in Germany too there is cause for concern for members of the opposition and government opponents.
In 2016, the German mosque association Ditib, which reports to the Turkish religious authority Diyanet, reportedly passed on information about government critics to the Turkish authorities.
Politicians and journalists who express themselves critical of the Turkish government must also expect hate mail and death threats, as the case of former Green chief Cem Özdemir shows.
UN warn against Turkey - but there are no sanctions
As
reported by
the
Tagesspiegel
, the United Nations wrote a letter to the Turkish government out of concern last year.
In the letter, they accused the government of arbitrarily arresting, detaining and torturing Turkish citizens.
But there are no international sanctions or protests as in the case of Belarus.
According to information from
Deutschlandfunk
, Shenkkan criticized in an interview with the Turkish exile broadcaster Ahval that the international community was letting Turkey do its thing.
"These kidnappings are well documented, and yet they play no role in Turkey's bilateral relations, even with its most important allies such as the USA, France or Germany - the issue does not come up."
In an interview, Shenkan urgently advises the international community to act: "If there are no consequences for a state that disregards the rule of law, then he will not only continue this tactic, but expand it more and more - and that is exactly what is happening in Turkey."