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Netherlands bars Turkish FM’s plane from landing

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,The Netherlands has barred a plane carrying the Turkish foreign minister from landing to drum up support for an April referendum in Turkey, saying the trip was be a threat to public order.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Saturday said Turkey’s call for a massive rally had upset discussions under which his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu would have been allowed to enter the European country.

The ban came despite Ankara’s threat of sanctions against Amsterdam if the Dutch government canceled Cavusoglu’s visit.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at the decision, saying the ban was reminiscent of Nazism and pledged to retaliate.

Cavusolgu had told CNN Turk earlier in the day, “I am going to Rotterdam today, if the Netherlands cancels my flight permit, our sanctions to the Netherlands would be heavy.”

The Dutch premier slammed the threat of sanctions, saying such a move “made a reasonable solution impossible.”

Cavusoglu denounced “fascist practices” by the Dutch government against rallies aimed at gathering support among Turkish citizens in the Netherlands in the April 16 referendum on giving executive powers to Erdogan.

Amsterdam had previously expressed opposition to Ankara’s plans for holding a referendum rally there. Germany has also canceled two Turkish ministers’ plans for rallies.

During the Saturday interview, the Turkish foreign minister said German and Dutch bans on campaigns for a ‘Yes’ vote in the upcoming referendum on constitutional changes means that Europe is “taking a side for a ‘No’ vote.”

On February 10, Erdogan approved a bill earlier adopted by the parliament that will change the country’s political system into a presidential one if approved in the referendum.

The European Council said the amendments would give the president “the power to dissolve parliament on any grounds whatsoever, which is fundamentally alien to democratic presidential systems.”

The president would be able to serve for a maximum of two five-year-long mandates. That means Erdogan could end up staying in office for two more terms until 2029, with the next elections scheduled for 2019.

The new constitution would also reportedly pave the way for the abolition of the post of prime minister, in which Erdogan served from 2003 until 2014, and enable the appointment of vice presidents. It would also empower the president to hire and fire ministers.

The proposed constitutional changes have been met with widespread protests across the country, with critics claiming that the ruling party is using last year’s botched putsch to expand Erdogan’s authority and crackdown on opposition.

More than 250 were killed during the coup on July 15, when a group of army soldiers and police officers attempted to oust Erdogan. After suppressing the coup, Erdogan ordered a massive crackdown, which has seen more than 40,000 people jailed and some 110,000 others discharged from their jobs.

Dutch anti-Islamist politician Geert Wilders calls for ban on Turkish cabinet visits

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Populist leader Geert Wilders has slammed a planned event in The Netherlands in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Wilders is hoping to come out on top in the country’s next general election.

With just 10 days until the Netherlands elects its next government, Wilders delivered a statement to reporters in which he slammed plans by Turkish officials to campaign in the European country.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other Dutch officials have already criticized plans to hold the rally in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.

“They should not come here and interfere with our domestic problems,” Wilders told reporters, referring to the Turkish officials planning to attend the rally.

He went on to call for a ban on the politicians from entering the country, saying in English, “If I would be prime minister today I would declare – until at least the half of April when they have the referendum – I would call the whole cabinet of Turkey persona non-grata for a month or two, not allowing them to come here.”

Wilders, who officially launched his campaign in February, also said the Dutch government was weak for not banning the rally and referred to Erdogan as an “Islamo-fascist leader.”

Vying for votes

Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) led opinion polls for several months, with around 20 percent support, which was seen as enough to lead a multi-party coalition, if only the other parties hadn’t ruled out a deal with Wilder’s party. But the PVV has lost ground in recent weeks.

In the most recent poll released on Wednesday, it now trails Rutte’s conservative liberal VVD by 16.3 percent to 15.7 percent.

Wilder’s who last month launched his campaign denouncing what he called “Moroccan scum who make the streets unsafe,” has previously being fined for inciting racial hatred.

The controversial MP suspended campaigning for a few days last week after one his security officials was arrested on suspicion of passing classified information about Wilders to a Dutch-Moroccan crime gang.

The firebrand lawmaker, who has courted controversy with his hardline anti-Islam, anti-immigrant stance and incendiary insults against Moroccans and Turks, has long been under 24-hour police protection.

He promised to return to campaining this weekend on an anti-immigration and anti-EU platform.

The 53-year-old has vowed that if elected he will pull the Netherlands out of the EU, ban the sale of Korans, close mosques and Islamic schools, shut Dutch borders and ban Muslim migrants.

German towns cancel Turkish ministers’ campaign rallies

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The cities Gaggenau and Cologne have blocked campaign rallies for Turkey’s upcoming referendum that Turkish ministers were due to attend. The cities cited security and parking concerns as reasons for pulling permission.

The small, southwestern German town of Gaggenau withdrew permission on Thursday for an event where Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag planned to address a campaign rally in support of a controversial constitutional referendum to boost President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s powers.

Bozdag had been scheduled to give a speech in Gaggenau on Thursday night, but the city pulled its permission for the event to take place, saying that the hall where the rally was supposed to take place was too small to accomodate the expected crowd.

Due to the fact that the event picked up a great deal of media attention, “the city expects a large number of visitors for which the Bad Rotenfels Hall, the parking lots and the access roads are not enough,” the city said in a statement on its website.

The statement also said it did not know whether the event would continue to be held at a different location.

Cologne follows suit

The next minister to travel to Germany as part of the Turkish referendum campaign was supposed to be Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci, who wanted to address German Turks in Cologne on Sunday.

Following the ban in Gaggenau, a Cologne court also banned the weekend rally there, a citing security reasons.

Of the more than 3 million people of Turkish descent living in Germany, some 1.4 million are eligible to vote in the controversial referendum taking place in April.

rs/rg  (dpa, AFP, Reuters)

ANI launches Turkish-language site on Armenian Genocide

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On Monday, February 27, the Armenian National Institute (ANI) launched a Turkish-language version of its popular website documenting the facts and acknowledgments of the Armenian Genocide available at www.turkish.armenian-genocide.org.

The ANI site is visited over four million times a year and the number of people accessing from Turkey is substantial. As Turkey regularly censors foreign and domestic websites and the ANI English site has been hacked by denialists, the new ANI Turkish site was designed to give access to broader Turkish-language audiences, both in the Republic of Turkey and outside. The Turkish-language site will parallel many of the most commonly used features of the ANI site. For its first phase, the Turkish site features translations of official documents from countries around the world that formally recognize the Armenian Genocide.

The resolutions, laws, and declarations from countries that have historically recognized the Armenian Genocide can now be read in Turkish. They range from the May 24, 1915 Joint Allied Declaration that invoked crimes against humanity at the time the genocide was being committed to more recent parliamentary resolutions, including the 2016 German Parliament resolution that recognized the historic events and admitted German responsibility in the matter. Earlier this month the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany upheld the validity of the resolution.

Audiences in Turkey are also unaware of the voluminous Turkish records that confirm the facts of the Armenian Genocide. In 2004 the proceedings and legal analysis by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), commissioned by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission, was published in Turkish and several books have appeared in print since, but there is a massive gap in resources for Turkish speakers.

The ICTJ legal opinion in Turkish is available on the new website, which also includes a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section and a photographic collection. Additionally, a section for entries from the Encyclopedia of Genocide addressing several aspects of the Armenian Genocide is currently under construction.

The site will have new features that will be of particular interest to Turkish readers. The Institute is looking forward to expanding the site in the same systematic manner and by the same objective standards by which the ANI site was created.

The new site also features the ANI map keyed in Turkish, and links to other popular features, such as its digital exhibits and online museum.

Founded in 1997, the Armenian National Institute (ANI) is a 501(c)(3) educational charity based in Washington, D.C., and is dedicated to the study, research, and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.

136 Turkish diplomats seek Germany asylum

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Germany says it has received 136 asylum requests from Turks holding diplomatic passports since the July coup attempt against the Turkish president.

The figure is a total for the period August 2016 to January 2017, BBC News reports citing German media.

Turkey has urged Germany not to grant asylum to any military officers. Some posted to Nato bases in Germany are thought to be among the group.

In Greece, two more Turkish soldiers have requested asylum.

The pair – reported to be commandos – are believed to have taken part in the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

They are in Greek police custody, having applied for asylum last week in Orestiada, a small border town near Turkey.

Last month a Greek court rejected Turkey’s request to extradite eight other Turkish soldiers who fled after the coup attempt. Turkey is appealing against that ruling.

The German interior ministry did not identify the 136 Turks who requested asylum. Not only diplomats but also their spouses and children hold diplomatic passports.

It is not clear if any of them have been granted asylum yet.

Soldiers who fled after the coup attempt fear that they will not get a fair trial in Turkey.

The Turkish authorities have dismissed at least 100,000 public servants, including teachers, police and members of the judiciary.

Tens of thousands of suspects are in detention. The crackdown is targeting suspected supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who lives in self-imposed exile in the US.

Related links:

BBC. Turkey coup: 136 diplomats and relatives seek Germany asylum
Meduza: Более 130 граждан Турции с дипломатическими паспортами попросили убежища в Германии

Turkish imam spy affair in Germany extends across Europe

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(DW) A German investigation into Turkey’s religious officials collecting information on its enemies may be the tip of the iceberg. DW has obtained several documents revealing Turkish activities in Germany and European states.

German police on Wednesday raided the homes of four imams alleged to have spied on the opposition for the Turkish government. The police action is part of an investigation into what documents obtained by DW show to be a broader Turkish effort to collect information across Europe on supporters of the religious movement Ankara blames for last July’s failed coup attempt.

The raids targeted the homes of four Turkish imams affiliated with the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), Germany’s largest Islamic umbrella group with over 900 mosques tied to the Turkish government’s Directorate of Religion, or Diyanet.

The Federal Prosecutors Office (GBA) said in a statement no arrests were made in the raids in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and Rhineland-Pfalz, which aimed to collect evidence into imams conducting alleged espionage against supporters of the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara blames for last July’s failed coup attempt.

The prosecutor’s office said the reason for the raids was related to a September order from Diyanet, a religious body tied to the Turkish prime ministry, for imams to pass information to diplomatic missions on Gulen supporters.

According to the documents obtained by DW, 13 imams and a “deputy coordinator” in the two states provided information to the Turkish religious attaché at the consulate in Cologne on at least 14 Gulen affiliated institutions and 45 people with alleged ties to the Gulen movement. NRW’s ministry of education has identified five people on the list as state-employed teachers.

A NRW interior ministry spokesman confirmed the documents from the Turkish consulate obtained by DW were the same as those in their possession. “It cannot be ruled out that further reports were drawn up from Germany and the neighboring countries,” he said.

In addition to naming people, the consular memos speak generally of those who “provide support or are sympathizers” of the Gulen movement, report on activity or name former institutions in their region.

German authorities have contacted those named on the lists and advised them against travel to Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has engaged in a massive post-coup purge.

Several of the imams have returned to Turkey, DW learned after making calls to some of the mosques, a factor likely to complicate the federal investigation.

Most of the Gulen-affiliated institutions are engaged in after-school tutoring for the socio-economically disadvantaged, inter-religious dialogue, cultural activities and projects to better integrate Turks in Germany. In NRW alone, the movement runs 63 associations and five private schools that get partial state support.

In the wake of the coup attempt, Turkey has called on all countries to clamp down on the Gulen movement, which it considers a terrorist organization.  The issue has raised tensions between Turkey and some of its NATO allies, including Germany.

Both reports from Austria say Turkish state religious officials have taken active measures against the Gulenist activities and its attempts at “infiltration.” The Salzburg memo says ATIB and other religious officials “destroyed all books, audio materials, video CDs, poetry, brochures, newspapers and propaganda material” related to the Gulenists.

In Austria, religious official have “just like in the homeland assessed possible connections of the nefarious terror organization” and informed the Turkish government, the document reads.

Earlier this week, Austrian Greens Parliamentarian Peter Pilz announced he was in possession of religious attaché reports from Salzburg and Vienna. Pilz said he was working on publishing documents from 30 countries that revealed a “global spying network” at Turkish diplomatic missions.

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/turkish-imam-spy-affair-in-germany-extends-across-europe/a-37590672

Germany investigates possible anti-Gulen spies by Turkish government

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German police have raided apartments of four men suspected of carrying out espionage on behalf of the Turkish government. The men, said to be clerics, are accused of spying on supporters of cleric Fethullah Gulen.

German authorities said on Wednesday that they had raided the apartments of four imams suspected of spying on opponents of the Turkish government.

The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (GBA) said the raids, in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, were to find evidence. No arrests were made.

The GBA said the imams were believed to have given information to a Turkish diplomatic mission about followers of the cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused US-based Gulen of instigating a failed military coup in July last year, and has launched a crackdown on his supporters inside Turkey.

“The individuals are suspected of having collected information about members of the so-called Gulen movement and passed it on to the general consulate in Cologne,” the GBA said.

Gulen – who was close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan  before their relationship turned sour – has condemned the coup attempt, while acknowledging some of his supporters may have participated.

The GBA said in a statement that the clerics were believed to have acted on an order issued by the Turkish based religious authority Diyanet last September. That order requested “detailed reports” on pro-Gulen organizations, including small community groups.

Ankara’s influence ‘clear’

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the four men were members of Ditib, Germany’s largest association of mosques. The group brings imams from Turkey to serve Germany’s Turkish community, which numbers some three million people.

“It is very clear that the influence of the Turkish state on Ditib is big,” said Maas in a statement. “The association must plausibly disengage itself from Ankara.”

An Austrian, Green party lawmaker this week claimed that Turkish diplomats were enlisting Turkish religious organizations in Austria to undermine Gulen supporters there. Parliamentarian Peter Pilz said his team was working on documents to show the practice was even more widespread, spanning some 30 countries across Europe, Africa and Asia.

rc/jm (AP, Reuters)

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/germany-investigates-possible-anti-gulen-spies/a-37557872

Turkish Ship raided human smugglers arrested at New Jersey port “Yet Turkey not on Banned list”

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Agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have raided a Turkish cargo ship in New Jersey, arresting the ship’s first officer and chief engineer on human smuggling claims.

First officer Özcan Köse, 36, and his brother Oğuz Köse, 35, will be tried in Pennsylvania after having been accused of taking 25,000 dollars each to engage in human smuggling.

U.S. agents raided the Turkish cargo ship Niledutch Opresy, which was at the Elizabeth Port, on Jan. 30, detaining the Köse brothers on charges that they engaged in human smuggling to the U.S. and “turned it into a trade.” Two illegal Turkish passengers were also detained.

According to a criminal complaint filed and sent to the Pennsylvania Eastern Region Federal Court by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Nicholas K. Feil, the smuggling network founded by the brothers surfaced after a Turkish secret witness, who was smuggled into the U.S. in May 2013, was caught by the police in April 2016 and became an informant.

The secret witness said he met Özcan Köse, then captain of the ship the Cafer Dede, via two Turkish citizens in the Pennsylvanian towns of Levittown and Lancaster, identified respectively only as Adem and İzzet. He said he met Köse after sending a picture of himself to a person named Samet Öztürk on Facebook. Köse and the secret witness then met in the Aliağa district of the western province of İzmir.

Noting that he gave the smugglers 25,000 dollars each, the secret witness said he passed through a security check with a fake ID and hid in the chamber of the ship for a total of 18 days during the trip.

The secret witness told police that he and Köse spoke at length during the trip and that Köse told him he had smuggled a number of Turkish citizens to the U.S. and Canada in a similar fashion. He also said Köse showed him the pictures of the people he had smuggled.

The secret witness said he went from the ship’s chamber to the engine room as the ship approached U.S. waters, after which Oğuz Köse helped him pass through U.S. security.

After landing, the witness met with Adem and İzzet in a parking lot and gave them 7,000 dollars, while giving Özcan Köse 18,000 dollars.

The secret witness said a couple of months after the incident, he received a message from Özcan Köse on Facebook.

“Do you know anybody else who wants a trip to the U.S.?” he asked the witness and the witness’ brother, identified only by the initials as C.T., who traveled to the U.S. in the same way. According to the testimony, C.T. and two other Turkish citizens entered the U.S. through the Newark Port on Jan. 28, 2016.

A criminal complaint was prepared on Jan. 24 before the Niledutch Osprey arrived in the U.S. The complaint was then signed by Pennsylvania Eastern Region Federal Court prosecutor Andrea G. Folkes and Judge Carol S. M. Wells.

Meanwhile, the cargo ship left New Jersey after a first officer and a chief engineer were sent from Turkey to the ship late on Feb. 1.

No legal procedures were carried out regarding the ship and the other crew on it.

The Köse brothers and the two Turkish illegal passengers are expected to appear in court on Feb. 6.

Turkish Author Serkan Engin: Shame of A Turk Because of the Armenian, Assyrian, Greek Genocides “eBook”

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Turkish Author Serkan Engin Book

Published on Feb 2, 2017 

react-text: 84 Free e-book of Turkish author Serkan Engin on the Armenian, Assyrian, Greek genocides This e-book has been collected from the essays and interviews of Turk-Laz poet Serkan Engin about the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides in English, Armenian, Russian, Greek, French, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, German, and also Turkish.

Turkish journalist advertises Armenia

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Turkish journalist Serdar Korucu, who is known for his numerous publications about Armenia, posted an article and a photoshoot about Armenia on a foreign website.

In his publication, Korucu complimented the country sightseeing.  At the same time he noted that the lack of diplomatic relations with Yerevan is not so important for visits to Armenia.

Serdar Korucu’s Facebook profile picture is a photo of “We and Our Mountains” monument in Karabakh.