Radio Sweden exposes how Turkish gov’t is tracking down critics in Sweden

Sweden’s official radio station, Radio Sweden, has documented that Turkey’s government is trying to identify and track down supporters of the Gülen movement in Sweden, the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) reported on Tuesday.

According to the SCF report, Radio Sweden has obtained a recording of Özer Eken, chairman of a lobbying organization with close links to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), attempting to strong-arm a member of the Gülen movement into providing information on other supporters.

“What I can tell you is that if you help the state, the state is going to help you,” Eken said in the voice recording, which Radio Sweden stated that it received from an anonymous source.

Eken claims to be a personal friend of Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and is chairman of the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD), the AKP’s lobbying organization in Sweden. The UETD is known for its close affiliation with the AKP government.

In the conversation, Eken threatened the Swedish Gülen supporter that there would be reprisals if he did not give some concrete information on Gülenist activity in Sweden.

The Gülen movement has been inspired by the US-based Turkish Muslim intellectual Fethullah Gülen, who has been advocating science education, interfaith and intercultural dialogue and community contribution. The movement promotes a moderate version of Islam with a heavy emphasis on public service. The movement runs schools and universities in 170 countries.

Gülen has been a vocal critic of the Turkish government and Turkey’s autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan concerning a massive corruption in the government as well as Turkey’s aiding and abetting of radical groups in Syria. Erdoğan launched an unprecedented persecution against Gülen and his followers in December 2013, immediately after a major corruption probe that implicated Erdoğan’s family members.

The ruling AKP’s Islamist leaders labeled the movement as “FETÖ,” a terrorist organization, although Gülen, a 76-year-old cleric, and his followers have never advocated violence but rather remained staunchly opposed to any violence, radicalism and terror in the name of religion.

“Brother, they will want to have access to all activity going on here. If you do not give them something concrete, you are finished,” Eken said.

‘They are going to take you your wife as a hostage’

He told him that his name had been added to a list of regime critics and that he risked arrest should he ever visit Turkey. He also said that he could have his wife arrested in Turkey.

“You are going to be arrested, but your wife will be arrested too,” Eken said. “They are going to take you your wife as a hostage.”

When Radio Sweden confronted Eken with the recording, he said that it was not his voice. Radio Sweden has been able to prove that it is Eken’s voice on the recording.

This is not an isolated case. According to Radio Sweden’s sources, other people working for the Turkish state in Sweden are involved in the mapping of government critics. This includes the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm and imams working in Turkish mosques in Sweden.

Emre Oğuz, a former Turkish journalist, now working as a teacher in the south of Sweden, chose to speak openly: “The Imams (who are paid by the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs [Diyanet]) must report about people who go to the mosque. I know that. I talked to imams before the coup attempt. It was a special task for them. Imams who do not want to report are themselves reported. So now all imams follow directives from Turkey,” he said.

But after the coup, he said the reports changed.

“After the coup the reports became more detailed and focused on all opposition groups. And now they write about people directly. For example, who is Emre, what does he do, who works with Emre?”

He told Radio Sweden that the consequences of being reported are worse than before.
“Previously, neither Ankara nor the Diyanet used to do anything on the basis of these reports. Now, though, they are doing many things. For example, if there is a report about you and you go to Turkey, they can arrest you immediately upon arrival.”

Oğuz is convinced that he is on one of the lists of traitors who would be arrested upon arrival in Turkey. “Yes, absolutely. People close to the AKP have told me directly. They say they reported me to the embassy. If I go to Turkey, I am sure that they will arrest me and I will not be able to come back to Sweden.”

Ove Bring, professor emeritus of international law at Stockholm University, said that Eken’s activities could qualify as refugee espionage. “It’s against Swedish law, there’s no doubt about that,” he told news agency TT. “In addition, it’s against international law. It’s important to point that out. To have foreign agents on Swedish territory transgresses Swedish law.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström on Tuesday contacted Ambassador Kaya Türkmen, Turkey’s envoy in Stockholm, and expressed Swedish government concerns over the profiling of the critics of the Turkish government and the espionage scandal.

It is not the first time that pro-AKP groups in a European country have been profiling the sympathizers of Gülen movement. According to a report by Süddeutsche Zeitung with the NDR and WDR television channels on Monday, the Turkish National Intelligence Service (MİT) has prepared a list of 300 Turks and 200 schools, associations and organizations that are connected to the Gülen movement in Germany. The lists include addresses, telephone numbers and photos of the people.

MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan submitted the list to Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), during the Munich Security Conference last month. Kahl forwarded the list to the federal government and all security institutions, the report claims. After evaluation of the list, German experts concluded that most of photos were taken secretly by surveillance cameras.

The report also said German authorities have started to warn people who are on the MİT list. Both the intelligence agency and the police took on the responsibility of informing Gülen movement sympathizers about the MİT surveillance.

Last month the coordinator of DİTİB, Murat Kayman, announced his resignation over the charges. German police teams raided the apartments of four DİTİB imams in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate who are suspected of acting as informants.

The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (GBA) said in a statement that the imams had acted on an order issued on Sept. 20 of last year by the directorate to profile Gülen movement sympathizers.

Earlier, DİTİB officials admitted to profiling Gülen movement sympathizers based on instructions from Turkey’s top religious authority, the Directorate of Religious Affairs.

The Turkish government and President Erdoğan accused Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen and the movement he inspired of being behind a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

In an interview published in Der Spiegel magazine on March 18, BND head Kahl said despite efforts at various levels, Turkey could not convince Berlin that Gülen was behind the failed coup.

In response to a question on the Gülen movement, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by President Erdoğan, the head of German intelligence defined the movement as a civilian association that provides religious and secular education through a number of educational institutions.

Gülen called for an international investigation into the coup attempt, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a great gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

Earlier in January, a report prepared by the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (IntCen) revealed that although President Erdoğan and the Turkish government immediately put the blame for the July 15 failed coup on the faith-based Gülen movement, the coup attempt was staged by a range of Erdoğan’s opponents due to fears of an impending purge, according to a report by The Times newspaper.

Contrary to accusations made by Erdoğan and the Turkish government, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament has concluded on March 25 that Gülen and the movement he inspired as a whole were not behind the coup attempt in Turkey on July 15.

Similarly, Devin Nunes, chairman of United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said last week that he has not seen any evidence showing Gülen’s involvement in the failed coup attempt in Turkey.

Over 135,000 people, including thousands within the military, have been purged over their alleged links to the Gülen movement since the coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

As of March 23, 94,982 people were being held without charge, with an additional 47,128 in pre-trial detention over their alleged links to the movement. A total of 7,317 academics were also purged as well as 4,272 judges and prosecutors, who were dismissed due to alleged involvement in the July 15 coup attempt.

Published on Turkish Minute, 29 March 2017, Wednesday