Abdullah Bozkurt
The Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen profiled and monitored a Denmark-based Turkish journalist who was critical of the government in Ankara and had been moved to a safe house by the Danish intelligence service after a plot to kill him was discovered, Nordic Monitor has learned.
According to secret Turkish government documents obtained by Nordic Monitor, the Turkish Embassy had filed two reports about Hasan Cücük, a veteran Turkish reporter who had been working as a journalist in Denmark since the 1990s. The classified documents indicate that the Turkish Embassy reports were sent to the Foreign Ministry in Ankara and were later shared with other branches of government, helping to build a false criminal case on terrorism charges. The journalist faces multiple indictments in Turkey, his native country, drafted by the government in order to silence his critical views and dissuade him from writing. There is no credible evidence of wrongdoing in any of the investigation cases launched against the journalist, although prosecutors cited his writings, social media postings and expression of political views as tantamount to criminal activity.
The embassy profiling report eventually ended up in a criminal investigation case managed by Turkish prosecutor Adem Akıncı against Cücük and others who were falsely accused of terrorism because of their affiliation with the Gülen movement, a group critical of the government in Turkey. The report singled out the journalist as one of the leading critics in Denmark of the Islamist government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The report shows that the journalist’s involvement in a media outlet based in Copenhagen was reported by embassy operatives as if constituting criminal activity. Cücük’s name was listed twice in an Excel-style worksheet with an explanatory note attached next to his name. One line showed him as being affiliated with Zaman ApS and another with Moving Media ApS.
The secret police investigation report on journalist Hasan Cücük and other critics (identifying information for others listed was redacted by Nordic Monitor) : Read more…
