Levent Kenez/Stockholm
The US Department of Justice denied Turkey’s request for assistance in taking the statement of a Turkish dissident within the scope of a terrorism investigation, citing freedom of expression and the First Amendment, which prohibits criminal prosecution for associating with a particular group, and due to the absence of additional information accompanying the documents submitted.
According to information obtained by Nordic Monitor from veteran journalist Adem Yavuz Arslan, who shared the document with the public on Sunday, a Turkish citizen visiting the Turkish Embassy in Washington to conduct consular business finds themselves on a list containing critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and their profiles. Upon this revelation, the person is denied service and their presence in the United States is reported to Ankara. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs then shares this information with the Department of Justice and Turkish intelligence.
Critics of the Erdogan government abroad, especially members of the Hizmet/Gülen movement, have often been denied consular services such as power of attorney and birth registry as well as having their passports revoked. Their assets in Turkey are seized and their family members at home risk criminal charges.
On September 12, 2023 the US competent authority, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs (OIA), received a request from Turkish authorities for legal assistance. Turkish authorities asked US authorities to ensure that a specified individual connects with Turkish authorities via video-teleconference on March 7, 2024 to deliver his defense/testimony. The allegations pointed to the individual’s purported membership in the Gulen movement, a group critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Gulen movement is deemed a terrorist organization by the Turkish government.
The request included references to bank transactions and donations to a charity affiliated with the movement.
The Turkish government accepted such activities as having an account at the Gülen-affiliated Bank Asya, holding an administrative position at a Gülen movement-linked institution, subscribing to the group’s publications, being a member of a trade union or donations to Gülen-affiliated charities as benchmarks for identifying and arresting tens of thousands of followers of the Gülen movement on charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
SERTIFIKA (3)However, the US authorities declined, citing constitutional protections under the First Amendment. They highlighted the fundamental right to freedom of expression and association, safeguarded by the constitution. Consequently, without sufficient evidence to demonstrate imminent violence or credible threats to Turkish lives, they refused to fulfill the request for assistance.
Not only the American judiciary but also the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that Turkey’s allegations against members of the Gülen movement lack legal basis.
In a landmark decision with potentially far-reaching implications, the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR ruled in September 2023 that the conviction of Yüksel Yalçınkaya, a teacher in Turkey, on terrorism charges, which included using a mobile phone app and having an account at a specific bank, was unlawful. The decision could have significant consequences for thousands of individuals facing similar charges in Turkey.
The ECtHR found that Turkey had violated three key articles of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): Article 6, guaranteeing the right to a fair trial; Article 7, prohibiting punishment without law; and Article 11, protecting freedom of assembly and association.
On March 21, 2017 a Kayseri court had sentenced Yalçınkaya, who is still incarcerated, to more than six years in prison on conviction of terrorist organization membership based on his alleged use of the ByLock messaging app and having an account at Bank Asya. In 2020 he applied to the ECtHR, claiming his rights had been violated.
Yalçınkaya was alleged by the prosecutors to be affiliated with the Gülen movement, a group opposing President Erdogan. The Turkish government declared the Gülen movement a terrorist organization, but the declaration received no international support.
This isn’t the first instance of Turkish diplomats profiling dissenters in the US. They were previously found to have spied on a US resident critical of the Turkish government. In a concerning breach of privacy, they accessed his travel records in North America through the Department of Homeland Security website.
According to a confidential document from the Turkish Foreign Ministry dated February 26, 2018, classified as secret, Turkish diplomats utilized the website of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a federal law enforcement agency under the US Department of Homeland Security, to gather the travel records of a medical doctor and academic renowned for his innovative research in endocrinology.
While the doctor’s name was redacted by Nordic Monitor due to safety concerns, he has been a target of Erdogan’s government due to his political views and alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement. The movement opposes Erdogan and criticizes his regime on various issues, including corruption and Turkey’s involvement with armed jihadist groups.
Facing politically motivated criminal prosecution in 2015, the 53-year-old doctor was compelled to relocate to the US, where he had previously lived and worked at esteemed institutions including Harvard University. Staying in Turkey would have led to wrongful imprisonment.
But that did not stop the Turkish government’s hunt for him, and Turkish diplomats – some apparently agents of Turkish intelligence agency MIT under diplomatic cover — in the US were ordered to determine his whereabouts and report his activities to headquarters in Ankara. The information collected by Turkish diplomats was sent to the Justice Ministry in Turkey and added to a criminal case file against him.
Nordic Monitor previously published confidential Turkish government documents that revealed how Turkish embassies and consulates profiled 4,386 critics abroad in 2016-2017 alone and confirmed that the information collected by Turkish diplomats was used to launch criminal investigations into those opponents by Turkish prosecutors.
The foreign ministry sent lists of profiled Turkish nationals in two CDs to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, the national police and intelligence agency MIT on February 19, 2018 via an official document for further administrative or legal action, the punishment of their relatives back in Turkey and the seizure of their assets.
In February 2021 former foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu confirmed clandestine spying operations by Turkish diplomats on foreign soil. Çavuşoğlu said diplomats assigned to embassies and consulates have officially been instructed by the government to conduct such activities abroad.
The Turkish government has also benefited from the pro-Erdogan networks and organizations of the Turkish diaspora. In the last couple of years Turkish diaspora associations have been accused of acting as the long arm of the Erdogan regime in the West, and some of them have been put under surveillance by local intelligence agencies.
