Turkish Intelligence Conducts Surveillance at Gülen Funeral to Identify Erdogan Critics

On 30 Novem­ber 2024, the oppo­si­tion news plat­form Nordic Mon­i­tor report­ed that the Turk­ish intel­li­gence agency MIT had covert­ly con­duct­ed sur­veil­lance on US soil to iden­ti­fy crit­ics of Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan’s gov­ern­ment. The arti­cle begins: 

The Turk­ish intel­li­gence agency, Mil­li İstih­b­arat Teşk­i­latı (MIT), covert­ly con­duct­ed sur­veil­lance on US soil to iden­ti­fy indi­vid­u­als, includ­ing many Amer­i­can cit­i­zens, crit­i­cal of Pres­i­dent Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increas­ing­ly author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ment, as revealed in sev­er­al offi­cial com­mu­niqués obtained by Nordic Mon­i­tor. Dat­ed Nov. 19, 2024, a com­mu­niqué ref­er­enced an intel­li­gence note from MIT to the Secu­ri­ty Gen­er­al Direc­torate (Emniyet), direct­ing them to con­duct back­ground checks on indi­vid­u­als iden­ti­fied dur­ing the sur­veil­lance. On Nov. 15, the Emniyet trans­mit­ted the intel­li­gence to the Şan­lıur­fa Provin­cial Police Depart­ment via a clas­si­fied cable, des­ig­nat­ed 2024111419275740355… 

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Key Points:

• Turk­ish intel­li­gence con­duct­ed covert sur­veil­lance in the US to iden­ti­fy crit­ics of Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan, includ­ing Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. 

• The sur­veil­lance oper­a­tion tar­get­ed the funer­al of Fethul­lah Gülen, a promi­nent crit­ic of Erdo­gan, held in the Unit­ed States. 

• The MIT col­lab­o­rat­ed with local Turk­ish author­i­ties to con­duct back­ground checks and fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tions on iden­ti­fied indi­vid­u­als. 

• Indi­vid­u­als iden­ti­fied may face severe reper­cus­sions, includ­ing false ter­ror­ism des­ig­na­tions, crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions, and fam­i­ly pun­ish­ments in Turkey.