Turkey's 'Traitors' Speak Out
Updated on April 17, 2017
In Turkey, a national trauma has turned into a never-ending nightmare for hundreds of thousands of citizens. Following a failed coup attempt in July, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan targeted alleged coup plotters, who he believes acted at the direction of Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled Islamic cleric living in Pennsylvania. But Erdogan didn’t stop there. He aimed to root out all Gulen sympathizers and turn them into what one local columnist called “socially dead people.” They have been ostracized, declared traitors, and dismissed from their state jobs.
Overnight, studying at a Gulen-affiliated university or possessing a book written by the cleric became evidence of membership in so-called FETO, the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization. Once known as the “religious movement of Gulen,” it was praised by Erdogan himself. But in 2013, conflicts of interests between Erdogan and Gulen resulted in a power struggle.
The government’s crackdown has extended well beyond the Gulenists. Leftist activists, Kurdish politicians, and dissenting academics have all been targeted. Under the ongoing emergency law declared immediately after the coup, almost 100,000 people were dismissed from their jobs without trial. More than 47,000 people were imprisoned in relation with the coup.
On April 16, Turkish citizens voted in a referendum that will give Erdogan even more power over the country. Ahead of the vote, we were desperate to find out more about those who had been affected by the crackdown—their lives, hopes, and dreams. What follows is our months-long attempt to map the current course of one of the most geopolitically important countries in the world, through the eyes of those who are now deemed its traitors.
The Journalist
There was a time when 31-year-old Fatih Yagmur, an award-winning Turkish journalist, thought his biggest problem
