The repression of Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues and increases: as far as France, the Turkish president is chasing his opponents. Teacher Tuna Altinel paid the price.
It’s been almost two years since Tuna Altinel had her passport confiscated. On April 12, 2019, this Turkish mathematician, teacher in Lyon since 1996, was arrested during a trip to Turkey during his leave, his passport withdrawn. When he tries to recover it, he finds himself placed in detention. He is then accused “Belonging to a terrorist organization”. He is criticized for… facts that occurred in France. He had participated in the meeting of a Kurdish association, Amitiés kurdes Lyon-Rhône-Alpes, organized in February 2019 at the town hall of Villeurbanne (Rhône). “It was a legal meeting, itself held by a completely legal 1901 law association”, emphasizes the teacher. But in Turkey, any support from near or far to the Kurds is assimilated to terrorism. The meeting focused on alleged war crimes committed by the Turkish army in 2016 in the small town of Cizre, a Turkish town with a Kurdish majority. 180 civilians had perished and burned, probably killed by the army.
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But how can participation in a conference in France end up being prosecuted in Turkey? It was the Turkish consulate in Lyon which had forwarded the information. We knew how much Erdogan had woven his network in France. So here is, with Tuna Altinel, a concrete example of how Turkey goes so far as to spy on its nationals on French territory. At the time, the Turkish consulate had tried to prevent the meeting, it had intervened with the prefecture and the city of Villeurbanne, in vain. But he had also drafted a report for the Turkish Interior Ministry to denounce Tuna Altinel and pass the Prokurdian association off as a PKK pharmacy (considered a terrorist organization by the European Union). According to the mathematician’s support committee, this report sent by the Lyon consulate also included a list of Kurdish and Turkish activists residing in Lyon, with their address and professional activity. Even French nationals were included. “In France, it seems to me that we are beginning to realize the will of the Turkish authorities to be present and influential in your country, but not sure that we understand how much”, alert Tuna Altinel. Among the community relays of Turkey in France, let us recall in particular the Equality and Justice Party (PEJ), considered as an offshoot of the AKP, which wanted to be a representative of all the Muslim votes in France and which had succeeded in presenting several candidates during the last legislative elections.
Tuna Altinel was finally acquitted definitively in September 2020. However, his passport has still not been returned to him. “My acquittal was a legal showcase”, he believes. The confiscation of his passport is more pernicious: he cannot move freely between France and Turkey, but it is less spectacular than a trial. His support committee called on the French authorities in a press conference held on February 22, while Villeurbanne made him an “honorary citizen”: “Can the highest French and European authorities accept that one of their state officials cannot return to carry out his teaching and research missions, and has been for almost two years? “
Ankara’s attitude towards Altinel is indicative of the harassment suffered by academics in Turkey. Recall that for Erdogan, the 2016 coup attempt was a ready-made pretext to engage in unlimited repression against all bodies likely to be counter-powers, starting with journalists and teachers. More than ever, this repression continues: Erdogan attacked the Bosphorus University in Istanbul in early January, known for its independence and its fight for democracy. The Turkish president has imposed a new rector there, a member of the AKP. While in France we are slinging down on “Islamo-leftism”, at the same time, in Turkey, students and teachers are mobilizing against the stranglehold of AKP Islamists. Several of them have been arrested and will be tried in the coming days. There remains one question: for Tuna Altinel, isn’t that putting herself even more in danger than talking to Charlie ? “When the Turkish political power decides to attack a person, everything is a pretext, so it is not an interview with Charlie which will change a lot “… ●
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