A Turkish opposition lawmaker has raised concerns that a former soldier dismissed by an emergency decree after a coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 may have been forcibly disappeared after he went missing in Ankara last week.
Bora Arslanoğlu left his home on the morning of September 15 and has not been heard from since, according to Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a lawmaker from the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) and a human rights defender.
In a post on X, Gergerlioğlu said Arslanoğlu had been dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces by an emergency decree and has also faced prosecution as part of the post-coup crackdown but was ultimately acquitted.
Gergerlioğlu said the Ankara Police Department had confirmed that Arslanoğlu was not in police custody and called on the Ankara Governor’s Office to determine his whereabouts.
“Is this another case of abduction and enforced disappearance?” Gergerlioğlu said in his post, also asking whether Arslanoğlu was being subjected to torture.
Turkey declared a state of emergency six days after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt, which killed 251 people and wounded more than 2,000. During the two-year state of emergency and its aftermath, some 150,000 people were dismissed from government service, the military and the judiciary, through emergency decrees and administrative decisions.
Gergerlioğlu last month documented 73 alleged abductions and disappearances in Turkey since 2015, many involving people dismissed by emergency decrees or accused of links to the Gülen movement. Some remain missing, while others later resurfaced in police custody and said they had been held at secret locations and tortured.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the faith-based Gülen movement, inspired by Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated Erdoğan as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) has reportedly abducted more than 30 people since 2016, most of them accused of links to the Gülen movement. Many resurfaced in police custody after being missing for months.
The UN Human Rights Committee has also raised concerns about allegations of enforced disappearances involving people accused of links to the Gülen movement, while Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on Turkish authorities to effectively investigate allegations of enforced disappearances and torture.
