ISTANBUL: President Tayyip Erdogan has filed a lawsuit against the leader of Turkey’s main opposition party over “baseless” comments linking the president to the Muslim cleric Ankara blames for a failed 2016 coup, Erdogan’s lawyer said on Thursday.
The cleric, Fethullah Gulen, was once a close ally of Erdogan’s government, but they fell out in recent years. Turkish authorities declared Gulen’s movement a terrorist organization in 2016 and accused his supporters of instigating the military putsch later that year in which 250 people were killed.
Tens of thousands of people have been detained on charges of links to Gulen’s movement in the security crackdown that followed the attempt to overthrow Erdogan.
The head of the secular opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP,) Kemal Kilicdaroglu, said this week Erdogan had been closer to Gulen than any other Turkish politician.
“The political arm of the Gulenist network is the person who is occupying the presidency,” Kilicdaroglu said in a speech to members of his party in Ankara. “The number one political arm of Gulenist network, the number one defendant, is the person who occupies the presidency.”
Lawyer Huseyin Aydin dismissed the accusation, saying it was clear to everyone Erdogan was leading the fight against Gulen and that the president was seeking 250,000 lira ($63,000) in damages.
“We have filed a lawsuit because of Kilicdaroglu’s unfair and baseless accusations directed toward our president,” Aydin said on Twitter.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has denied involvement in the abortive coup.
The UN human rights office said earlier this month Turkey has detained 160,000 people and dismissed nearly the same number of civil servants since July 2016. Of those detained, 50,000 have been formally charged and kept in jail during trial.
Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for 15 years as prime minister and then president, has had multiple spats with Kilicdaroglu that produced more than 20 court cases. ($1 = 3.9855 liras)
Turkey’s Erdogan sues opposition party chief over Gulen comments
Turkey’s Erdogan sues opposition party chief over Gulen comments
Israel’s hostage forum releases AI-generated video of last Gaza captive
- The Gaza ceasefire, which came into effect in October, remains fragile with both sides alleging violations, and mediators fearing that Israel and Hamas alike are stalling
JERUSALEM: An Israeli group representing the families of Gaza hostages released on Tuesday an AI-generated video of Ran Gvili, the last captive whose body is still being held in the Palestinian territory.
The one-minute clip, created whole cloth using artificial intelligence, purports to depict Gvili as he sits in a Gaza tunnel and appeals to US President Donald Trump to help bring his body back to Israel.
“Mr President, I’m asking you to see this through: Please bring me home. My family deserves this. I deserve the right to be buried with honor in the land I fought for,” says the AI-generated image of Gvili.
Gvili was 24 at the time of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
He was an officer in Israel’s Yasam elite police unit and was on medical leave when he learnt of the attack.
He decided to leave his home and brought his gun to counter the Hamas militants.
He was shot in the fighting at the Alumim kibbutz before he was taken to Gaza.
Israeli authorities told Gvili’s parents in January 2024 that he had not survived his injuries.
The AI clip was released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the main group representing those taken captive to Gaza.
The Forum said it was published with the approval of Gvili’s family.
“Seeing and hearing Rani speak in his own voice is both moving and heartbreaking. I would give anything to hear, see and hold him again,” Gvili’s mother Talik said, quoted by the Forum.
“But all I can do now is plead that they don’t move to the next phase of the agreement before bringing Rani home — because we don’t leave heroes behind.”
The Gaza ceasefire, which came into effect in October, remains fragile with both sides alleging violations, and mediators fearing that Israel and Hamas alike are stalling.
In the first stage, Palestinian militants were expected to return all of the remaining 48 living and dead hostages held in Gaza.
Since the ceasefire came into effect on October 10, militants have released 47 hostages.
In the next stages of the truce, Israel is supposed to withdraw from its positions in Gaza, an interim authority is to govern the Palestinian territory instead of Hamas, and an international stabilization force is to be deployed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump in Florida later this month to discuss the second phase of the deal.
