 |
Çiçek’s action plan first put into operation in Gaziantep
According to Yeni Şafak, former Gaziantep Provincial Gendarmerie Commander Col. Ali Tapan ordered that the activities of Gülen’s followers be monitored in the city. He also ordered a group of gendarmes to monitor the activities of other religious groups. The surveillance was part of a plan, named the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism, which was exposed by a Turkish daily in June. The plot was drafted by Col. Dursun Çiçek. According to the plot, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had a systematic plan to destroy the image of the AK Party government and the Gülen movement in the eyes of the public and to play down the investigation into Ergenekon.
The TSK also hoped to gather support for members of the military arrested as part of the Ergenekon probe. Dozens of Ergenekon members, including businessmen, members of the military and journalists, are currently incarcerated while standing trial.
Tapan hoped to portray the monitored members of religious groups as members of an illegal terrorist organization. To monitor those individuals, Tapan sent written notices to gendarmes in March. According to the notices, gendarmes were to determine whether there was any former member of the military in Gaziantep who had been expelled from the military for “reactionary activities.” The colonel also asked gendarmes to communicate with followers of religious groups and ascertain their views on the TSK, secularism, the headscarf ban, F-type prisons, human rights violations and claims of corruption against TSK staff.
Çiçek’s plot also aimed to portray followers of the Gülen movement as being engaged in illegal acts. “We will enable the discovery of weapons, ammunition and documents at the addresses of Gülen’s followers as if they were members of a terrorist organization. The movement will be named ‘Fethullah’s Armed Terrorist Organization’ [FSTÖ], and investigations into its members will be carried out by military prosecutors,” read the plot.
Col. Çiçek was arrested last month for suspected membership in a clandestine terrorist organization but was released after being briefly detained. He was also arrested and released in July.
Turkish dailies previously reported that the same plot had been put into operation in eastern Erzincan and northwestern Bursa provinces.
Two secret witnesses, interrogated recently by a public prosecutor, claimed that they were offered a bribe by three members of the military -- one major, a lieutenant colonel and a sergeant major -- to plant weapons at the addresses of followers of Fethullah Gülen in Erzincan. The three members of the military were arrested and put in jail last month.
In Bursa, the gendarmerie wiretapped the phone conversations of around 250 individuals as part of Çiçek’s action plan. The wiretap records were compiled in such a way as to show that the individuals were members of an illegal organization.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ |  |
||
| Google kidnaps Gül! | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| İHSAN YILMAZ |  |
||
| The Egyptian elections, Islam and Islamists | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Operational errors | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| There is need for a new initiative | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| HASAN KANBOLAT |  |
||
| Are Russian tourists being discouraged from visiting Turkey? | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
| KLAUS JURGENS |  |
||
| Back to the ’80s | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
