The German daily Die Welt has documented the cases of harassment by Turkish consulate officials against certain opposition groups: The Gülen movement, Kurds and Alevites.
“Reports of Turkish citizens who are harassed in the consulates are accumulating – not just in Germany,” a recent report said before adding: “For example, a Turkish teacher with an Alevi background was recently invited to a consulate in North Rhine-Westphalia [just because] he had expressed his criticism in his teaching. He was threatened with ‘consequences’.”
“They do not want the Turkish government to know where they are,” Kamal Sido, an expert from the Society of Threatened Peoples (STP) said underlining that there are several cases of people who are afraid to visit Turkish consulates abroad.
“Many of the people concerned do not dare to go public,” echoed Mehmet Tanrıverdi, Deputy President of the Kurdish Community of Germany.
Meanwhile, Mehmet Dağ, a teacher at a German-based Gülen movement-affiliated school, says he dares no longer to go to mosque he has been visiting since childhood as it is controlled by the Turkish-Islamic Association DİTİB, which is under the Turkish religious authority. (turkeypurge.com) March 21, 2017
