Doğan is a common family name in Turkey. In this diary Mehmet Doğan is a well known writer/journalist and the same name of an imam Doğan who was arrested in 2010 for links to al-Qaeda in east Turkey.
From an Ankara insider – @fuatavnifuat
Dec. 11
Those who gathered outside the Zaman newspaper infuriated Erdoğan and his chums the most. Pray for them, not me.Dec. 13 – 14 hrs ago
- They updated the list of to-be-detained after they were forced to postpone the operation. Beşir Atalay is now supervising it.
- A new operation will start on Dec. 14 or 15 and will continue until Dec. 25. Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor Orhan Kapıcı is in charge.
- Istanbul Intelligence Unit Chief Edip Vural will join Orhan Kapıcı. Vural is in Erdoğan’s radar due to his affair and extramarrital kid.
- The operation will be carried out against police units who previously conducted a raid against al Qaeda-linked Tahşiye Group.
- Police will be framed with bombs seized from Tahşiye Group in a perception-making operation.
- Due to the reaction after I exposed the operation, they reduced the number of to-be-detained journalists. Mainstream media and liberals will be put out of it — for now.
- A top secret meeting is currently going on at Istanbul Intelligence Unit. I still don’t have the final version of the detainee list.
- Fethullah Gülen was not on the list. After Erdoğan put pressure and told them to “find a way”, he was included in the list.
…
- The detainee list that came from the top secret meeting is like this:
- Fethullah Gülen 2. Ekrem Dumanlı 3. Nuh Gönültaş 4. Naci Çelik
…
- Detainee list:
- Murat Kasap 46. Mustafa Yıldız 47. Vefa Özcivan
These are the ones I have from the top secret meeting.
19. Erdoğan is directly supervising the operation. All orders are made by him.
It is absolutely ironic that he included Fethullah Gülen in the case, blaming him for ordering the operation.
A very troubling policy change for Erdogan’s Turkey … granting freedom of movement to Salafists who had been detained four years ago on charges of terror acts. Has spy chief Fidan continues on a path of joining hands with Saudi Arabia and his earlier meetings with evil Prince Bandar. This alternate move by Turkey ends the close cooperation Erdogan had with the Obama administration, especially with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. The Muslim Brotherhood triangle of Egypt’s Morsi – Hamas – Qatar has faced defeat after defeat in its policy to extend influence in the Arab region. Turkey will form policy in self-interest making openings to Putin’s Russia and even Israel’s Netanyahu. On Syria and the overthrow of president Assad, my enemy’s enemy is my friend.
○ Israel’s IDF meets Syrian al-Nusra rebel forces on the Golan Heights
Turkish police raid newspaper, detain editor-in-chief, head of broadcaster | Hürriyet Daily News |
ANKARA Dec. 14, 2014 – Turkish police have launched a media operation to detain 32 people, including media figures and former police chiefs, simultaneously raiding addresses in 13 provinces across the country. The raid on daily Zaman occurred at 7.15 a.m. local time, as supporters of the newspaper stood guard in front of the office building over rumors that such an operation would take place.
Police returned to the newspaper’s office at around 2.00 p.m. on Dec. 14 after leaving the building in the morning without starting any proceedings. Zaman editor-in-chief Ekrem Dumanlı was taken to police station after being shown the notification of his detention.
Continued below the fold …
Many of Turkey’s media organs were broadcasting live in the newspaper’s office when Dumanlı was detained. Samanyolu Media Group Head Hidayet Karaca and a producer, scriptwriter and director were also detained, according to reports.
Tufan Ergüder, the former head of the Istanbul Police Department’s anti-terror branch and the former head of the Hakkari Police Department, was also detained in the Dec. 14 operation.
The semi-official Anadolu Agency has reported that the operation was launched for the detention of 32 people, including senior police officers and media members, on charges of fabricating crimes and evidence in a 2010 investigation into an organization reportedly closed to al-Qaeda.
Some 122 people were detained in an operation against the “Tahşiye Organization” in 2010. Mehmet Doğan, a senior leader of the organization, spent 17 months in prison before being released. It was claimed that retired imam Doğan was opposed to the ideas of Fethullah Gülen.
Jamestown: Turkish Jihadis Respond to Ankara’s Anti-Al-Qaeda Operations | Feb. 2010 |
Led by the Emniyet Genel Mudurlugü (EGM – General Directorate of Security), the raids took place in the cities of Van, Ankara, Sanliurfa, Mersin, Malatya, Adana, Gaziantep, Diyarbakir, Mus and 14 other towns (Milliyet, January 23). Many of these towns are in eastern Turkey, where there has been a rise in Salafism and militant Islam in recent years. While Turkey is currently run by the Islamist Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP – Justice and Development Party), it has shown itself to be as intolerant of al-Qaeda activities as previous secular governments.
According to the Turkish press, the arrests unfolded after the Turkish police uncovered an al-Qaeda-associated group in Ankara and Adana earlier in the week (Zaman, January 21). Information found at this time alerted them to the existence of three separate al-Qaeda rings that were said to have been run by an Afghan-based leader named Mehmet Dogan. Turkish sources claim that this figure was responsible for sending as many as 100 Turks to Afghanistan for military training and indoctrination. While it might seem incongruous that Turkey, a country known for its Ataturk-style secular tradition, would send so many people to Afghanistan or Pakistan for jihad training, in actuality there has been a small trickle of Turks going to fight jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years (see Terrorism Monitor, December 7, 2006). Seven Turkish nationals who were suspected of having ties to militant groups in Pakistan were deported from that country to Turkey on January 26. The suspects were turned over to Turkish authorities in Istanbul (Dawn [Karachi], January 28).
It should be recalled that homegrown Turkish al-Qaeda cells carried out a major suicide bombing that killed 58 in Istanbul in 2003 and attacked the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 2008 (see Terrorism Monitor, November 18, 2004). Turkish jihadi websites have posted several martyrdom epitaphs for Turks who died fighting Coalition forces in Afghanistan in recent months.
The purported leader of the targeted Turkish al-Qaeda group, Mehmet Dogan, had three amirs (commanders) under him, namely Serdar Erbashi (a.k.a. “Ebuzer,” the head of the Ankara cell), Dincay (head of the Kaceli cell) and Vedat Altin (head of the Gaziantep cell). Another leader of some significance was a professor at Yuzuncuyil University in Van known only as “M.E.Y.” who recruited several of his students.
Evidence found in the raids points to the existence of an elaborate plot and included anti- government propaganda, camouflage clothing, fake documents, plans of police stations, rifles, ammunition, photos of Turks in Afghanistan, explosives and grenades.
Global ‘leadership’ of human rights and religious freedom or a Clash of Civilizations [pdf]
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This trend of caricaturizing and externalizing Western-oriented groups and classes is symptomatic of a marked inability to come to terms with the transformations that affected the whole imperial socio-political system as well as related networks of economic relations. Instead, the nationalist-conservative tradition opts for totalitarian scenarios bordering on fascism and aiming at either the preservation of the “old order” or a totally regulated scheme of change in Turkish society.In this context, radical nationalist insistence on the protection of the Turkish state and nation to the degree of not complying with democratic norms and regulations affecting both individual and group rights with the pretext of resisting to what is imposed by the EU can hardly be regarded as a singular or even original gesture in Turkish political and intellectual history. Classical works produced in the nationalist-conservative tradition such as D. Mehmet Doğan‘s manifesto Batılılaşma İhaneti [The Treachery of Westernization] have already pointed out the dangers of alliances with Europe and admiration of European ways, norms and values.
Bush set the spark that lit the fuse … Obama and Ms Clinton were witnesses to the chain of events of an exploding Islamist movement and imploding sovereign Arab states. Obama kept his prize ally Israel and lost US influence in the Middle East and Arab states. As predicted some time ago …
○ ‘Sultan’ Erdogan Attempts to Block Graft Probe In AKP Party
○ Free Syrian Army Defeated, US Entices Saudi Led Terror Group | Dec. 2013 |
○ US Will Be Ousted by Saudi King Abdullah in Middle-East | Feb. 2013 |