PHILADELPHIA – October 11, 2022 – Middle East Forum Writing Fellow Abdullah Bozkurt, an expatriate critic of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkish regime, is in danger after a regime-linked newspaper published photos of him, and his home address in Sweden, on its front page.
Regime authorities have boasted of their desire to harm Bozkurt. Mesut Hakkı Caşın, a member of the Presidential Security and Foreign Policy Board, told CNN last year that: “Turkish national intelligence will find [Bozkurt], I’ll tell you that ... I don’t know whether [it] will feed him to the fish or the sharks, but traitors always get their punishment.”
Bozkurt has written extensively on the regime’s internal crackdown; corruption; ties to Iran, Hizbullah, al-Qaeda and ISIS; attacks in Iraq and Syria; and export of Islamism. Just yesterday, he revealed the regime’s plans to provoke fellow NATO member Greece using clandestine operations. (For a list of his writings, please click here.)
The investigative journalist was forced to flee Turkey after the alleged coup attempt in 2016, when Today’s Zaman, where he used to work, was shut down. Bozkurt moved to his current address after he was brutally attacked and injured by three unidentified men outside his former home in Stockholm in September 2020.
Countless other Turkish journalists and dissidents have fled Turkey since 2016. Many have been forced back to Turkey against their will; others have been subject to assassination plots.
“This is part of an intimidation campaign to send a chilling message, not just to me but to all journalists: ‘Shut up or else,’” said Mr. Bozkurt. “Erdoğan’s intrusive spying has compromised my security and put my family’s safety at risk. But I refuse to be intimidated, and I will continue my work.”
“Such barbaric behavior is par for the course for Erdoğan’s regime,” said Forum founder and president Daniel Pipes. “It threatens Greece, blackmails Sweden and Finland, invades Syria, bombs Kurds, and exports radical Islam globally. Let Turkey go to Russia and China. It’s time for a NATO 2.0 without it.”
The Middle East Forum promotes American interests in the region and protects Western civilization from Islamism. It does so through a combination of original ideas, focused activism, and the funding of allies.
For immediate release
For more information, contact:
Gregg Roman
Roman@MEForum.org
+1 (215) 546 5406
@GreggRoman - Twitter
