OUT OF SIGHT, NOT OUT OF REACH The Global Scale and Scope of Transnational Repression MİT’s direct involvement in multiple abductions, as in Sudan in 2017.281 An investigation by European journalists linked aircraft used in the operations to front companies connected to MİT.282 As President Erdoğan said in a speech after the abduction of six teachers from Kosovo in March 2018, “Wherever they may go, we will wrap them up and bring them here.”283 The progovernment English-language newspaper Daily Sabah regularly features articles on the campaign in a section of its website called “The War on Terror.” A few of the renditions, including one involving a group from Azerbaijan, appear to be classic abductions—people were bundled into cars on the street and then reappeared in Turkey with no procedures. But most have entailed the corruption and co-optation of host country institutions: local police or security services arrest Turkish citizens, who are then held in detention for a short period before being secretly transferred to Turkish custody and immediately taken to Turkey on Turkish aircraft. In the best-documented cases, there has been a thin veneer of legal procedure, as when Kosovar authorities revoked the residency permits of six Turkish schoolteachers and then declared them a national security threat and swiftly transferred them to Turkish custody. The operations are often clumsy. In Kosovo, one of the six men arrested and rendered to Turkey the same day was not on the original list—he was a different Turkish teacher with the same first name as the intended target.284 In Mongolia, the attempted rendition of a school administrator sparked protests across the country, leading to his release and a crisis for the Mongolian government, which was seen as aiding the attempt.285 Ankara’s aggressive campaign has had significant local repercussions. In Kosovo, the head of the intelligence agency was forced to resign after the March 2018 renditions.286 Following a similar set of renditions in Moldova, the head of that country’s intelligence service was convicted and given a suspended sentence for his involvement.287 In at least these two cases, there were accusations that the Turkish government received high-level political support for the operations, but that the intelligence chiefs were blamed instead. 40 @FreedomHouse Mobility controls Aside from renditions, the most important tool of Turkish transnational repression has been mobility controls. The authorities canceled more than 230,000 passports after the coup attempt in a bid to confine suspected opponents within Turkey and limit mobility for those already outside the country. The government also reported as lost or stolen an unknown number of passports. Gülen movement members abroad reported being unable to renew passports or have passports issued for children at Turkish consulates, meaning they would have to return to Turkey and face the risk of arrest. Although tens of thousands of passport cancelations were later officially rescinded, the process was marred with errors, and some of the affected individuals continued to encounter problems when using passports to travel. Canceled passports in turn created opportunities for detention during travel, and the detainees could then be extradited or rendered back to Turkey. The Turkish government has tried to exploit Interpol to target exiles. Following the coup attempt, it allegedly tried to “batch” upload some 60,000 names onto the agency’s notification system.288 German chancellor Angela Merkel denounced these tactics in August 2017, arguing that Turkish “misuse” of the Interpol system had become unacceptable.289 Ankara’s flagrant abuse may have resulted in policy changes in some areas, though Interpol has not officially commented on the issue. Romanian court documents denying an extradition to Turkey in July 2019 appear to indicate that Interpol had created a policy to set aside requests based on the coup attempt as a violation of its rules against politically motivated requests.290 Interpol notifications nonetheless remained a useful tool, leading to the detentions of German-Turkish writer Doğan Akhanli and Swedish-Turkish journalist Hamza Yalçin in August 2017, and the unlawful deportations of two individuals accused of membership in the PKK from Serbia and Bulgaria. Due to the opacity of Interpol, and also to the fact that notices entered into the global system may persist in national systems even after they are revoked, it is difficult to determine whether the organization has genuinely dealt with the problem of politically motivated requests originating in Turkey. At a minimum, it is clear that Interpol notices continue to result in detentions of Turkish citizens around the world, including in cases where the request is likely related to the coup attempt. As of fall 2020, Turkish citizens associated with the Gülen movement continued to be detained in locations as far away as Panama, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.291 #TransnationalRepression