Following the calls of Turkey’s regime to inform on people who are thought to have links to the Gülen movement, an Istanbul man called the police and had his son S.K. arrested for being “Gülenist.”
Yaşar K. who blames the Gülen movement for the foiled coup of July 15, in line with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s accusations of peaceful Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen being the mastermind of the coup, informed on his own son for alleged membership in a terrorist organization.
Speaking to a Turkish daily, Yaşar K. said he informed the police about his son because he defended the Gülen movement against accusations that have been fed to the public through mainstream TV in the wake of the failed coup. “I tried to protect my son by informing on him to the police,” said the father, before adding that it is time to “protect the state rather than one’s child.” He argued that his son has been under the influence of “FETÖ,” a pejorative term the state coined to designate the Gülen movement as a terrorist organization despite the lack of any court verdict to that effect and in the absence of credible evidence.
Yaşar K. told the police that the state could “reveal” information on the organization of the Gülen movement in Bolu province where his son works as a teacher. After an interrogation by counterterrorism units, his son S.K. was arrested.
Yaşar K. believes the state will be able to ¨protect¨ his son, unlike himself.