Turkey’s aggressive campaign of illegally rendering its opponents from foreign countries is in the spotlight again, this time in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan, where a Turkish educator has been missing since May 31. Rights groups are urging Kyrgyz authorities to investigate the disappearance of Orhan Inandi, the founder of an education network associated with Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Sunni imam blamed by the Turkish government for the failed 2016 attempt to bloodily overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Human Rights Watch said that Inandi may be forcibly deported to Turkey, where he runs the risk of being tortured and jailed, a pattern that has been repeated for scores of alleged Gulenists who have been kidnapped worldwide from Kosovo to Kenya by Turkish intelligence operatives and held at black sites for prolonged periods before surfacing in jail.
Freedom House asserted in a January report that Turkey has carried out such renditions in at least 31 different countries.
Turkey’s most recent prize is Gulen’s nephew Selahaddin, who disappeared from a police station in the Kenyan capital Nairobi last month. A local court had ruled against his extradition. A few days later his photos were splashed across pro-government newspapers showing him handcuffed and posing between two giant Turkish flags.
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