Erdogan turns Coup crackdown into Witch Hunt

The moment Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was waiting for: to have the chance put all his real and fictive enemies in a bag and throw them in the water – in prison, in this case. Whether moderate Islam supporters of his ex mentor Preacher & Scholar Fettulah Gulen, whether secular Kemalists in the army or in high ranking position of the state administration, whether critical journalists or academics, a wave of fear is sweeping across Turkey. Erdogan’s cadres have a cause: they knock at doors  with lists on their hands and arrest people.

Erdogan’s counter-coup moves started on Friday and continue without stop on Monday – and the days to come.

So far arrested are:

103 generals and admirals

6,000 members of the Turkish Armed Forces among them low-ranking officers and soldiers doing their military services.

Dismissed from their posts are:

2,745 judges and prosecutors – among them 48 judges at the Council of State

7,800 police officers

1,500 personnel dismissed form Finance Ministry

30 regional governors

50 high-ranking civil servants

Now it’s the turn of Journalists and Academics:

Turkey’s Higher Education Board (YOK) is meeting Monday afternoon with university rectors to “clean the uni” from academicians based on their views.

Higher Education Board in #Turkey will meet with rectors to "clean the uni" from academicians based on their views. pic.twitter.com/TQ4WG3uiEH

— Στράτος Μωραΐτης  (@oemoral) July 17, 2016

Official announcement by YOK.

A pro-government Twitter user named Başkentçi announced a list with the name of more than 75 “dissident journalists” allegedly to be detained soon as part of what is widely seen as an ongoing government crackdown against free media in Turkey. The list shared by the Twitter user on Sunday includes columnists from Yeni Hayat, Yarına Bakış, Özgür Düşünce and Meydan, which are among few remaining independent dailies in Turkey.

Among them is the name of Can Dündar, the editor-in-chief of center-left Cumhuriyet newspaper who was arrested in November 2015 after his newspaper published footage showing the State Intelligence MİT sending weapons to Syrian Islamist fighters. Turkish President Erdoğan had publicly targeted Dündar, stating: “The individual who reported this as an exclusive story will pay a heavy price for this.”

After 92 days in prison, Dündar and and Ankara office head Gül were released on 26 February 2016 after the Supreme Court decided that their detention was an “undue deprivation of liberty”. On May 6, 2016 there was an assassination attempt witnessed by multiple reporters in front of the Istanbul courthouse where Dündar had just been defending himself against charges of treason. The assailant was stopped by a reporter and a security officer before he could fire more than two shots. Nobody was hit, and the assailant was taken into custody.[11] On the same day, Dündar was sentenced to imprisonment for five years and 10 months for ″leaking secret information of the state″

On the Twitter list are also among others, the names of prominent Turkish journalists like Sahin Alpy, Ali Ünal, human rights activist Kemal Cengiz, Mehmet Altan. Also Nazlı Ilıcak, a prominent journalist who lost her job in 2014 after criticizing the government.

A Turkish court ordered the arrest of Arzu Yıldız, a critical journalist and the Ankara representative of Turkish news portal, Haberdar.com

Access to 20 news websites –most of them critical of the government– were shut down within two days after the coup attempt in Turkey.

In a latest move Monday afternoon:
Turkey banned public sector employees from going abroad.

The Mad Man of Bosporus is raging against anyone who thinks he could harm him or put obstacles in his path full of plans. After he eliminated the opposition, he turned against his former mentor Fetullah Gulen. And he had been devoted to his cause ever since 2013.

Erdogan, Gulen and the Coup

President Erdogan accused the Gulen movement for being behind the Coup of July 15. That’s rather odd. Because it is a common knowledge in Turkey that the Gulen movement had move influence in the police which he infiltrated when his protegee Erdogan came into power after 2003. But Gulen’s ties with the army were not the best. Gulen’s Islamic preaching was not the cupt of tea for an army with deep Kemalist roots.

The scholar left Turkey in 1999 on the pretext of a visit and never came back. He was sentenced in absentia in 2000 for remarks favoring an Islamic state. That was 2000 under the Kemalist Ecevit government. He was acquitted in 2008 under the new Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of Prime Minister Erdogan.

The split between Erdogan and Gulen came in 2013, when journalists accused of being Gulen supporters revealed a corruption scandal involving several AKP ministers. Erdogan accused Gülen of being behind the corruption investigations, a court charged Gulen with the same charges as in 2000.

He is currently on Turkey’s most-wanted-terrorist list.

After the Friday Coup Attempt, the common name the President, the government and the Turkish main stream media use for the coup organizers is The Gulenist Terror Organisation (FETO). The common description of coup plotters and “supporters” is that they are “terrorists.”

Interesting note: when in 2011 investigate journalist Ahmet Sik published his book “The Imam’s Army” about the Gulen movement, the author was thrown in prison for one year. But at that time, relations between Erdogan and Gulen were …Tamam (Turkish: OK).

Is there indeed Gulen behind the coup? Only Erdogan knows… in fact he probably knew in advance as the lists for arrests of “traitors” and “terrorists” were ready already on Friday – most likely: before Friday.