Turkey's Twitter "spies"
The political war between the Erdogan government and the Gülen Movement has a propaganda aspect, with each side seeing the other as the proxy of a detested enemy.
If you spend some time in Turkey’s prolific Twitter universe these days, you will likely read lots of messages about the “spies” in the country.
You will also notice that this narrative has two diametrically opposed versions. Some Turks seriously believe that their state has been deeply infiltrated by spies who work on behalf of Israel. Others believe that the same treason has been carried out by spies who instead work on behalf of Iran. If you pay attention, you will also see that the subscribers to the first conspiracy theory are supporters of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the subscribers to the second are supporters of the US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
In other words, the political war between the Erdogan government and the Gülen Movement, who were once allies, has a propaganda side as well. Among other things, it has both sides seeing each other as a proxy of a detested enemy: Israel or Iran.
The detention of dozens of police officers that shook the country during the final days of Ramadan only added fuel to these conflicting claims of conspiracy. (Most of the detained officers, who are widely believed to be affiliated with the Gülen Movement, were released after a weeklong interrogation, but 11 of them were held for trial while in custody.)
