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Screenshot of a broadcast on TRT TV on July 5 2021, in which Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announces that the intelligence services have transported Orhan İnandı from Kyrgyzstan to Turkey.
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(Berlin) – Turkish and Kyrgyz authorities abducted, forcibly disappeared, and extrajudicially transferred a dual Turkish-Kyrgyz national living in Bishkek to Turkey, Human Rights Watch said today. The actions included egregious violations of international and domestic law.
Orhan İnandı, the director of a network of prestigious schools in Kyrgyzstan, is the latest victim of a pattern of cases in which Turkey’s intelligence services have been involved in unlawfully transferring people to Turkey from countries around the world. Those targeted are allegedly connected to the movement of US-based Sunni cleric Fethullah Gülen. The Turkish government deems the Gülen movement a terrorist organization responsible for the July 2016 military coup attempt in Turkey.
“Abducting, forcibly disappearing, and unlawfully transporting Orhan İnandi to Turkey from Kyrgyzstan demonstrates again Ankara’s ruthless disregard for the rule of law in general and most basic norms of international law,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “That İnandı, a dual Turkish-Kyrgyz national, could be abducted and missing for weeks on Kyrgyz soil only to be illegally removed from the country by Turkey’s intelligence services, suggests the Kyrgyz government is either unwilling or unable to stand up to Ankara or directly colluded with them.”
On July 5, 2021, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced to the media that Turkey’s intelligence services had brought İnandı to Turkey, where he had been “delivered to justice,” showing video footage of him handcuffed before Turkish flags. İnandı had been missing from Bishkek since May 31, apparently abducted from his car, which was found abandoned. He remained unaccounted for until Erdoğan’s announcement. Allegations by İnandı’s wife that he was held for weeks in the Turkish embassy in Bishkek after his abduction were not officially confirmed by either Kyrgyz or Turkish authorities.
On July 6, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said in an interview that the government will demand İnandı’s prompt return to Kyrgyzstan. He also stated that since 2016 there had been three attempts to kidnap İnandı, the most recent in early 2021 prevented by the Kyrgyz State Committee on National Security. The Kyrgyz Foreign Affairs Ministry, also on July 6, submitted a diplomatic note to the Turkish Ambassador, Ahmet Sadık Dogan, asking Turkey to return İnandı to Kyrgyzstan and to ensure that he is not ill-treated in detention, in accordance with the norms of international law. While there has been no official response, Ambassador Dogan has been quoted in the media stating that İnandı is a Turkish citizen.
Civil society groups and others have expressed shock at İnandı’s forcible transfer to Turkey amid concern that the Kyrgyz government failed to thoroughly investigate his disappearance. There have been questions over the impartiality of Kyrgyz law enforcement in this case, specifically the State Committee on National Security, following allegations by Turkish media that Kyrgyz authorities were complicit in İnandı’s enforced disappearance.
This was complicated by news on June 16 that the State Committee had not been investigating İnandı’s abduction, but rather his Kyrgyz citizenship. Although on June 1, President Japarov instructed Kyrgyz police and the State Committee on National Security to intensify the search for İnandı, on June 24 the Bishkek Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed to the legal team for İnandı’s wife, Reyhan İnandı’s, that the Committee had not been part of the investigative working group.
Over the past five years, scores of men alleged by the Turkish authorities to have links with the Gülen movement, living in countries around the world, have been arbitrarily detained and forcibly returned to Turkey. There they are incarcerated on bogus terrorism charges in violation of due process rights and international law protecting basic rights including to liberty and security, a fair trial, and freedoms of opinion, expression, and association.
In several of these cases the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued opinions determining that Turkey has subjected the men to arbitrary deprivation of liberty. In many cases, as part of the illegal process to force their return to Turkey, the men have been victims of enforced disappearances.
In an enforced disappearance, a person is deprived of their liberty by or with the acquiescence of, agents of the state but their detention is either denied or their whereabouts is concealed, in violation of legal protections against such egregious forms of arbitrary detention. As has happened in the other such cases, there are serious and credible concerns that İnandı, already arbitrarily detained, will face prolonged unlawful pretrial detention and an unfair trial.
“The Turkish government should immediately disclose where İnandı is held in Turkey and secure his immediate release,” Williamson said. “So long as he remains in detention, he should receive a full and thorough medical examination from an independent medic in a hospital without the presence of security officials and be granted urgent access to a lawyer of his choice with a view to his prompt appearance before a judge. Kyrgyzstan should take steps to ensure the safety and protect the human rights of its citizen and hold accountable all those who bear responsibility for his abduction, enforced disappearance, and unlawful removal to Turkey.”
