Enes Kanter Freedom, an activist and former NBA basketball player, on Wednesday testified before a subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security of the US House of Representatives about the Turkish government’s transnational repression on dissidents.
“President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s long arm has reached tens of thousands of Turkish citizens abroad while Turkey has been experiencing a deepening human rights crisis,” Freedom told the subcommittee during a hearing titled “Safeguarding Dissident Voices: Addressing Transnational Repression Threats to Homeland Security.”
Freedom highlighted the US State Department’s 2022 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Turkey, which said Ankara has coordinated with other authoritarian states to rendition more than 100 Turkish nationals to Turkey since 2016.
“Turkey’s campaign has mostly targeted people affiliated with the Gülen movement,” Freedom said, referring to a faith-based group accused by the Turkish government of “terrorist” activities.
He gave examples of abduction of the group’s members, such as Selahattin Gülen, who was abducted from Kenya, Orhan İnandı from Kyrgyzstan and Koray Vural from Tajikistan. He also underlined that the victims are typically subjected to torture upon their return.
In addition to abductions and other forcible transfers taking place in Africa, the Balkans and Central Asia, Freedom also informed the sub-committee about the harassment and intimidation of government critics, such as journalists, living in Western countries.
“A Turkish journalist interviewed by Freedom House experienced the closure of US bank accounts, likely due to empty terrorism accusations from the Turkish government,” Freedom said. “There are dozens of people who live in the US, and their accounts are still closed.”
“People whose names appear on the published lists have faced various repercussions including the freezing or closure of their accounts, negative credit scores and various other personal and financial difficulties in Western countries.”
Highlighting his personal experience with transnational repression, which happened after his outspoken criticism of human rights violations in Turkey as an NBA player, Freedom said, “The Turkish government asked the US government to extradite me, canceled my passport, put my name on an Interpol list, imprisoned my father, and set a $500,000 bounty on my head.
“During a 2017 visit to Indonesia, I was nearly kidnapped by the local government officials with intentions to send me back to Turkey. With the help of a good local officer, I was able to get out of the country right away. Later that year, I hardly escaped from police officers at the Romanian airport that the Turkish government sent after me. They tried to arrest me and send me back to Turkey. Thankfully Senator Lankford got involved and helped me to fly back to the US.”
Several transnational repression reports published in recent years have all noted Turkey as a major perpetrator, detailing abductions, renditions in collaboration with host countries, financial harassment through abusive asset freeze lists, weaponization of foreign-based pro-government Turkish communities towards espionage and intimidation.
While the practice has mainly been focused on the Gülen movement, it also impacted notable Kurdish figures living abroad as well as renowned government-critical journalists based in Europe.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, his family members and his inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch in 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.
