Today’s Zaman: Gen. I\u011fsiz given three days to testifyi\u0131n propaganda website probe (04 August, 10″0)<\/p>\n
A prosecutor who has been investigating several websites set up by the General Staff to back the Turkish Armed Forces’ (TSK) alleged propaganda campaigns against civilian groups on Monday summoned 19 active duty and retired military officers, including 1st Army Corps Commander Gen. Hasan I\u011fs\u0131z, to give testimony as suspects in the Ergenekon probe by Friday.
\nErgenekon is a clandestine organization nested within the state and bureaucracy aiming to foment chaos in society, leading to a military takeover.
\nProsecutor Zekeriya \u00d6z said in the call, which was marked \u201curgent,\u201d that suspects, including six retired and 13 active duty officers, should come to testify within three days. If they fail to appear at the courthouse by Friday without any excuse, the prosecutors may obtain a court warrant ordering their apprehension by police force.
\nThe General Staff’s legal counsel, Brig. Gen. H\u0131fz\u0131 \u00c7ubuklu, is also among the officers who have been summoned to testify as part of the probe.
\n\u00d6z’s call comes at a time when a critical Supreme Military Council (YA\u015e) meeting has been discussing promotions for dozens of military officers. Gen. I\u011fs\u0131z is hoping to be promoted and replace current Land Forces Commander Gen. I\u015f\u0131k Ko\u015faner, who is expected to step in as the new chief of General Staff. Gen. I\u011fs\u0131z’s promotion was expected according to prior military practice, but his connection with \u201cblack propaganda websites\u201d may prevent his promotion. This year’s YA\u015e, which convened on Sunday to discuss the promotion and dismissal of dozens of military officers, is expected to announce its decisions today. Among the active duty officers summoned to testify were: Gen. I\u011fs\u0131z, Vice Adm. Mehmet Otuzbiro\u011flu, Lieut. Gen. \u0130smail Hakk\u0131 Pekin, Brig. Gen. \u00c7ubuklu, Brig. Gen. Mustafa Bak\u0131c\u0131, Col. Orhan G\u00fc\u00e7l\u00fc, Col. Sedat \u00d6z\u00fcer, Col. Ziya \u00dclker G\u00f6kta\u015f, Col. Dursun \u00c7i\u00e7ek, Col. Hulusi G\u00fclbahar, Col. Cemal G\u00f6k\u00e7eo\u011flu and Capt. Murat Usluk\u0131l\u0131\u00e7.
\nThe existence of the TSK\u2019s websites was revealed in an e-mail sent by a military officer to a number of newspapers and journalists last year. The officer, who asked to remain anonymous, claimed that the armed forces had established 42 separate websites to back its psychological warfare against civilian groups it deemed \u201creactionary,\u201d \u201cseparatist,\u201d \u201cpro-AK Party\u201d and \u201canti-TSK.\u201d The TSK also monitored the activities of more than 400 Turkish and foreign language websites. According to a document the officer attached to his letter, the plan against the websites was made at the \u201cThird Information Support Unit\u201d by Col. G\u00f6k\u00e7eo\u011flu, Col. \u00d6z\u00fcer, Col. G\u00f6kta\u015f, Col. \u00c7i\u00e7ek, Col. G\u00fclbahar, Col. G\u00fc\u00e7l\u00fc, Brig. Gen. Bak\u0131c\u0131 and Lt. Gen. Mehmet Er\u00f6z. The plan was coordinated by Lt. Gen. Pekin, Vice Adm. Otuzbiro\u011flu, Brig. Gen. \u00c7ubuklu and Gen. Hasan I\u011fs\u0131z. The document bore the initials of all those army officers and a note next to the initials of Gen. I\u011fs\u0131z that read: \u201cSubmitted to Esteemed Commander.\u201d Chief of General Staff Gen. \u0130lker Ba\u015fbu\u011f was also reportedly informed about the plan.
\nThe source who revealed the existence of the websites also indicated in his letter that the TSK\u2019s 42 websites were shut down after they made their way into news stories. \u201cAfter news reports found their way into the media, these websites were shut down and restructured. They were later re-activated after approval from the junta and the commanding unit of the TSK,\u201d the letter said.
\nAs part of the probe into the websites, five locations have been searched by the police in accordance with a court order. Among the addresses raided late on Monday was Lt. Col. Fatih Koca\u2019s villa in the Ba\u015fiskele district of the northwestern province of Kocaeli. The comprehensive search lasted six hours under tight security. Koca is on duty at the Naval Supply Support Command in \u0130skenderun, where six soldiers were killed by terrorists in May. Koca was also brought to Kocaeli from \u0130skenderun by plane. There were other raids in Ankara, \u0130zmir and the G\u00f6lc\u00fck district of Kocaeli. The searches were launched in accordance with a document titled \u201cHayhay,\u201d which was seized at the house of retired Capt. Hasan Ataman Y\u0131ld\u0131r\u0131m, an Ergenekon suspect. Two other addresses searched in Kocaeli were military lodges, sources said.
\nTwo websites overlap with action plan
\nAccording to Ergenekon prosecutors, two of the websites in question have similarities to the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism, a notorious document aimed at undermining the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the faith-based G\u00fclen movement. The plot in question was reportedly drafted by Col. \u00c7i\u00e7ek and suggests that the TSK made systematic preparations to damage the image of the ruling AK Party government and the G\u00fclen movement in the eyes of the public, to play down the Ergenekon investigation and to garner support for members of the military arrested as part of the investigation.
\nAccording to an indictment over the action plan which was accepted by the \u0130stanbul 13th High Criminal Court in April, two websites –www.irtica.org and www.irtica.net–overlap with the plans and activities mentioned in the action plan and intensively focus on topics that are frequently mentioned in the action plan. The indictment also states that the purpose behind the Internet sites was to win over public opinion by disseminating fabricated information. The websites include news and stories intended to alarm the public about the supposed threat of religious fundamentalism –or reactionaryism –taking hold. The action plan included a plot to have individuals such as Nurettin Veren, a former member of the G\u00fclen community, make statements against the community saying their real purpose was to establish Shariah law in Turkey.
\nIn a press conference in Nov. 2009, Gen. \u00c7ubuklu admitted that the General Staff had established such websites. \u201cThe TSK has websites established to monitor threatening reactionary and separatist factors within the plans and directives of the Prime Ministry,\u201d he said, adding that a normal \u201cprocess\u201d had been reported by the media to the public in a \u201cdifferent\u201d language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today’s Zaman: Gen. I\u011fsiz given three days to testifyi\u0131n propaganda website probe (04 August, 10″0) A prosecutor who has been investigating several websites set up by the General Staff to back the Turkish Armed Forces’ (TSK) alleged propaganda campaigns against civilian groups on Monday summoned 19 active duty and retired military officers, including 1st Army Corps Commander Gen. Hasan I\u011fs\u0131z,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[155],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-propaganda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7wjA8-j9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privacy.cyber-rights.org.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}