Journalist Cem K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fck, a staunch supporter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, suggested during a live TV program on Monday that Turkish intelligence should kill family members of jailed G\u00fclen followers in order to turn the inmates into operatives for the Erdo\u011fan regime.<\/p>\n
Speaking during a live TV show along with his program partner journalist Fuat U\u011fur, K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fck said Israeli intelligence agency MOSSAD had killed family members of Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian inmates to make them MOSSAD operatives.<\/p>\n
Suggesting that the National\u00a0Intelligence Organization (M\u0130T) adopt similar techniques to use on\u00a0followers of the G\u00fclen movement, accused by the Turkish government of being behind a failed coup last year, K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fck also gave the names of former police chief Ali Fuat Y\u0131lmazer, former general Mehmet Partig\u00f6\u00e7 and former Zaman daily owner Alaaddin Kaya, who might be useful for M\u0130T to acquire more information about the G\u00fclen movement.<\/p>\n
K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fck also criticized Turkish prosecutors for being soft on G\u00fclen followers and said: \u201cNow here [in Turkey] you feel pity for them (G\u00fclen followers). You should think of all the ways [to get rid of them].\u201d<\/p>\n
He also talked about excuses about probable deaths of G\u00fclen followers such as traffic accidents, suicides, mass suicides, death from excessive alcohol use, death from overdose, jumped off a bridge after he couldn\u2019t take the pressure of debt and health problems.<\/p>\n
He said Israel would kill 15-20 G\u00fclen followers all around the world if its government was targeted by a graft probe or a coup attempt.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s President Erdo\u011fan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government accused G\u00fclen movement followers, especially those in the state bureaucracy, for attempting to overthrow the government by means of a graft probe in December 2013 and a failed coup attempt in July 2016.<\/p>\n
Immediately after the putsch AKP the government along with Erdo\u011fan pinned the blame on the G\u00fclen movement.<\/p>\n
Fethullah G\u00fclen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdo\u011fan \u2014 calling the coup attempt \u201ca gift from God\u201d \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
Amid an ongoing witch-hunt targeting the faith-based G\u00fclen movement, Turkish Interior Minister S\u00fcleyman Soylu on Nov. 16 said 48,739 people had been jailed and eight holdings and 1,020 companies seized as part of operations against the movement.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s Justice Ministry announced on July 13 that 50,510 people have been arrested and 169,013 have been the subject of legal proceedings on coup charges since the failed coup.<\/p>\n
Turkey has suspended or dismissed more than 150,000 judges, teachers, police and civil servants since July 15 through government decrees issued as part of an ongoing state of emergency.<\/p>\n
According to Ministry of Justice data, there are currently 384 prisons with a capacity of 207,279 in Turkey; however, the total number of inmates was 228,983 as of October 2017.<\/p>\n
The Turkish Ministry of Justice plans to build 228 new prisons with a capacity of 137,687 in the next five years.<\/p>\n