Freedom House A widening scope Although the Gülen movement has borne the brunt, Ankara’s transnational repression campaign has widened beyond it. Can Dündar, then editor in chief of the major secularist daily Cumhuriyet, left the country for Germany in June 2016 after being sentenced to prison for leaking national security information in an article about Turkish arms shipments to Syria—on the same day an assailant tried to shoot him outside the courtroom. Since going into exile, Dündar has faced numerous threats. He and several other Turkish journalists in Germany have received protection from the German authorities.292 In September 2020, the Turkish state moved to seize Dündar’s assets in Turkey in connection with his conviction.293 Other recent incidents underscore the expansion of the rendition tactic to non-Gülenist targets. In March 2018, Ayten Öztürk was detained at an airport in Beirut, Lebanon, and held for five days before being handed over to Turkish officials. She was jailed in Turkey for five months without access to a lawyer, during which time she alleges she was Can Dündar and several other Turkish journalists in Germany have received protection from the German authorities. tortured. Öztürk is accused of being linked to the left-wing Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).294 In September 2020, Isa Özer, a former local candidate of the largely Kurdish and left-wing Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), was rendered without due process from Odesa, Ukraine, to Turkey. The operation appeared very similar to the renditions of two Gülen movement members from Ukraine in 2018—there was almost no time between detention and handover, and no clear legal process.295 Like thousands of other members of the BDP and its sister Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Özer is accused of PKK membership. freedomhouse.org 41