Pro-gov’t media under fire for linking Fethullah Gülen, CHP to sex tapes
Heavy criticism was leveled at some pro-government dailies on Wednesday by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), some independent deputies and lawyers of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen for their news reports claiming that Gülen has sex tapes of 45 CHP figures including the party's leader which he is using for blackmail.
Pro-government dailies Star, Akşam and Güneş had ran controversial stories on their front pages claiming that Fethullah Gülen has sex tapes of 45 CHP figures, including the party's leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
The dailies based their claims on conversations that allegedly took place using Twitter's direct messaging service between a government whistleblower who uses the name “Fuat Avni” on Twitter and some police officers. Earlier this week, the pro-government newspapers ran some stories claiming that the person who manages the Fuat Avni account has been exposed and that the owner of the account is journalist Emre Uslu. Uslu has strongly denied the claim.
The dailies also published tapes of conversations that allegedly took place between Avni, who they referred to as Uslu, and some police officers.
In the alleged conversations between Avni and a Twitter user named “kotilaji,” who is claimed to be a security guard for Kılıçdaroğlu's son, when “kotilaji” asks Avni why the CHP is so close to the Gülen movement, Avni says the movement has sex videos of 45 CHP figures, including Kılıçdaroğlu.
“The videos are under the control of Hocafendi,” the alleged Avni account wrote with reference to Gülen, who has been the target of an aggressive smear campaign from the government and the pro-government media since a corruption probe extending to government figures became public on Dec.17, 2013.
The conversations are allegedly dated February 2014, just a short while before the March 30 local elections.
According to CHP deputy Erdal Sünger, who served as a member of a parliamentary commission set up two years ago to investigate illegal wiretapping claims, the news reports about the alleged sex tapes are part of an election strategy of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government, which he said has gone out of control, to defame the CHP and make it lose public support ahead of the general elections in June.
“With the panic caused by the drop in their votes, the government is trying to denigrate the CHP through manipulations. … They are associating a cyber character whom they cannot identify with the CHP with baseless claims and manipulating the situation. The management of this ugly policy by the president and the prime minister shows that they are seriously concerned about losing the election,” he said.
The CHP also took legal action against the three pro-government dailies and their editors-in-chief for the controversial news reports on Wednesday.
CHP deputy Umut Oran launched criminal complaints into the dailies and their editors at the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, accusing them of being involved in slander. Oran also said he would petition the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) to exercise their right for a disclaimer because pro-government TV channels such as Kanal 24, 360, Beyaz TV, TGRT Haber, Ülke TV and TVNET have been broadcasting the controversial news report on their news bulletins throughout the day.
In the alleged conversations, Avni, referred to as Uslu by the pro-government media, also talks about plans by Fethullah Gülen, who is currently living in Pennsylvania, to flee the United States if it decides to extradite him in line with a demand from the Turkish government.
“Hoca [Gülen] will most probably go to Canada or Israel but he will stop by Turkey. There is no problem. Hoca has spoken with Israel and Israel told him to get on a plane and come the moment he feels the US will extradite him,” the alleged account of Avni wrote.
The lawyers of Gülen also released a statement on Wednesday, expressing outrage at the pro-government dailies' news reports claiming that Gülen has sex tapes of CHP politicians.
They said just as it is despicable to record the private acts of individuals to use them for blackmail in exchange for political benefits, it is also despicable to direct this accusation at innocent people without any concrete evidence.
The lawyers noted that these stories are published by the same news outlets which ran the story about a headscarved woman allegedly being attacked by protestors in İstanbul's Kabataş neighborhood during 2013's Gezi Park protests, which proved to be a lie after camera footage was later examined.
The necessary legal action will be taken against those behind the slanderous claims, the scholar's lawyers said.
In another conversation between the alleged Avni account and a police officer using the Twitter account “dustlastt,” “dustlastt” says Kılıçdaroğlu has fears that CHP Deputy Chairman Haluk Koç will betray the party. In return, the alleged Avni says there is also a sex tape of Koç.
When “dustlastt” says he did not expect Hakan Şükür, an independent deputy who resigned from the AK Party government following the corruption allegations, to leave the AK Party, the alleged Avni says there are also secret documents about him, implying that Şükür was blackmailed into resigning.
Şükür also vowed to take legal action against the pro-government dailies for Wednesday's news reports, also denying that he was threatened by the followers of the Gülen movement.
“Is such a thing possible? My life is visible. All these are being done in an effort to defame us for our stance against unlawfulness,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
Independent deputy Ertuğrul Günay, who previously served as AK Party culture minister, also reacted, voicing his embarrassment over the talk of sex tapes in politics as a means of obtaining political gain.
Describing the sex tape allegations as “primitive" and "unfounded," Günay said as a person in politics, he offers his apologies to the nation for dirtying of politics with sex tape allegations.
Although pro-government media circles, the government and Erdoğan are trying to associate the Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, with sex tapes, opposition parties have accused the AK Party government and President Erdoğan of being the ones involved in sex tape scandals targeting their parties.
In an audio recording uploaded onto YouTube last March, Erdoğan purportedly instructs his aides to take a video of former CHP leader Deniz Baykal, who resigned from his post in 2010 following a sex tape scandal, in flagrante delicto and disseminate the footage via the media and the Internet.
Baykal called the sound recording a “big satanic scenario” and wanted Erdoğan to immediately offer an explanation for it. Erdoğan denied the claims.
CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu also lashed out at Erdoğan over the allegations back then, accusing him of being behind the sex tape scandal.
In another statement, Kılıçdaroğlu said he saw the video of then-Prime Minister Erdoğan watching sex tapes of Baykal.
Erdoğan referred to Baykal's tape in his public rallies during the election campaign in 2011. He refuted Baykal's defense that this action was in the private sphere and was being used as a political instrument, saying it was “not private, this is public, public.”
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Deputy Chairman Oktay Vural also entered the fray, claiming Erdoğan was also involved in a plot to prepare and distribute sex tapes about a number of deputies in the MHP ahead of the last general elections in 2011.
Vural called the audio recording evidence of Erdoğan working as a “tape organizer and distributor.”
Former Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin, who resigned from the AK Party last year following the corruption scandal, said he heard rumors that the government is engaged in efforts to produce fake sex tapes that implicate a number of deputies who parted ways with the ruling party.
“I have heard that efforts are ongoing at the Prime Ministry and the [AK] party headquarters to dub and splice [tapes]. They [rumors] may be true or false, but I have heard about efforts to fabricate tapes involving resigned deputies,” the ex-minister said on a TV program last March.
In another development, the pro-government Yeni Şafak daily ran a story last June revealing Erdoğan's partiality for illegal wiretaps. The daily said Mehmet Yüksel, a former chief of the Prime Ministry's protective services, was promoted to this post after he won Erdoğan's trust with the illegally recorded wiretaps of Erdoğan's close circle allegedly given to him by the parallel state, a phrase used by pro-government circles to refer to the Gülen movement. Yüksel is among the suspects standing trial in a case into the planting of a bugging device in Erdoğan's prime ministerial office in 2011.
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