Pro-Erdoğan Turks’ violence targeting the members of the Gülen movement over the controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016, have reached into Europe. Turkish descent İbrahim Anaz, who lives in Belgium, said that he fell victim to a politically motivated knife attack from his niece’s husband, according to a report by Euronews on Wednesday.
Speaking to Euronews, 35-year-old Anaz, who is General Secretary of the Federation of Aktiv Businessmen Associations in Belgium which is affiliated with the Gülen movement, said his niece’s husband views him as a terrorist.
Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have jailed tens of thousands of people as part of its massive post-coup witch hunt campaign targeting alleged members of the Gülen movement across Turkey and the countries notorious National Intelligence Organization (MİT) have pursued them abroad. Moreover, disputes have erupted between family members in Turkey, with instances reported of relatives turning on each other.
The dispute in Belgium, Anaz said, arose when he warned his niece about traveling to Turkey in July 2017. He said his niece is a former teacher at a school affiliated with the Gülen movement, and that he phoned his niece to warn that she might be in danger of vacationing in Turkey.
Anaz said he arrived at his niece’s house and then the discussion turned violent. After the argument grew between Anaz, the husband of his niece, Anaz had to left the house.
Anaz claimed that his niece’s husband followed him out, yelling that he would kill him in the middle of the street. Then he stabbed Anaz in the back with a fruit knife. “I tried to defend myself,” he told Euronews. “The first swing came toward my neck. I was a hair away from death.”
Anaz said that he was wounded in his thumb and right and left arms. “When the place turned into a puddle of blood, he stopped for a moment and I found an escape.” He went to a hospital emergency room, Euronews wrote.
His attorney, Walter Van Steenbrugge, called it a politically motivated crime and is seeking stiffer penalties from a Belgian court. Anaz’s niece, meanwhile, has rejected the incident as political and instead called it a “family dispute.”
Hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey have been the subject of legal proceedings in the last two years on charges of membership in the Gülen movement since a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, a Turkish Justice Ministry official told a symposium on July 19, 2018.
“Legal proceedings have been carried out against 445,000 members of this organization,” Turkey’s pro-government Islamist news agency İLKHA quoted Turkish Justice Ministry Deputy Undersecretary Ömer Faruk Aydıner as saying.
Turkey survived a controversial military coup attempt on July 15, 2016, that killed 249 people. Immediately after the putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
Turkey has suspended or dismissed about 170,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants since July 15, 2016. On December 13, 2017, the Justice Ministry announced that 169,013 people have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced on April 18, 2018, that the Turkish government had jailed 77,081 people between July 15, 2016, and April 11, 2018, over alleged links to the Gülen movement. (SCF with Ahval)
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from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/pro-erdogan-turks-violence-targeting-members-of-gulen-movement-reaches-to-belgium/
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