Is Turkey responsible for the kidnapping of Orhan Inandi?
The founder of a network of education institutions in Kyrgyzstan disappeared in Bishkek last month. Was Turkey responsible?
On the evening of May 31, 53-year-old Orhan Inandi, founder
and chairman of the board of Sapat Educational Institutions, a large network of
prestigious schools and an international university in Kyrgyzstan, was declared
missing after failing to return to his home in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
The following day, investigators found his car, unlocked,
with four flat tires and all valuables inside, intact.
Local authorities announced that they were investigating a
potential kidnapping. However, on June 6, in a video posted on Twitter,
Inandi’s wife Reyhan claimed that an unnamed source had told her that her
husband, who holds dual Turkish-Kyrgyz citizenship, was being held against his
will at the Turkish embassy in Bishkek.
She went on to state that her husband was being forced to
sign documentation revoking his Kyrgyz citizenship in order to simplify his
extradition process.
Turkey Tribunal, a human rights group, also says that it has
information Inandi is being held at the embassy, and has called on NATO to put
pressure on Turkey to release him.
The Turkish embassy in Bishkek has denied the claims.
In 2019, the Turkish government accused Inandi, who has
worked in Kyrgyzstan since 1995 and has been a citizen of the country since
2012, of links with the movement connected with US-based Sunni cleric Fethullah
Gülen.
A former ally of Turkey’s ruling AKP party, Gülen has become
one of the main adversaries of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since a
corruption scandal rocked the party in late 2013, which Erdogan claimed was a
“dirty judicial plot” by police officers and investigators loyal to Gülen.
The scandal lead to a crackdown on the Gülen movement and
its followers. It has since been depicted as a radical Islamist organisation by
AKP-linked media and in May 2016 was officialy designated a terrorist group by
the Turkish government. That summer, a failed coup d’etat against Erdogan was
blamed on the movement, precipitating another crackdown on the group’s members
– both within Turkey and abroad.
Since then, Turkish nationals affiliated with the Gülen
movement have been arrested and extradited from places as far away as Kenya,
Cambodia and Gabon.
Once back in Turkey, they face prosecution on trumped up
terrorism charges.
On June 7, one day after Reyhan Inandi uploaded her video
about her husband’s whereabouts, Kyrgyz Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
Aibek Artykbaev confirmed that the Turkish government had requested Orhan
Inandi’s extradition in 2019, a request which the Kyrgyz government rejected,
citing Inandi’s Kyrgyz citizenship.
Some reports claim that in wake of the extradition request,
the Kyrgyz government offered Inandi a state-assigned security detail, which
the teacher turned down.
These details have exacerbated fears that Inandi may indeed
be in the custody of Turkish authorities and facing extradition, arbitrary
detention and an unfair trial.
Some have likened the situation to the disappearance of
Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi
Arabian consulate in – ironically – Istanbul. Small-scale protests have been
held in the Bishkek, with people demanding that the Kyrgyz government properly
investigate Onandi’s disappearance.
“Orhan Inandi is a Kyrgyz citizen,” says Syinat
Sultanalieva, a researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Kyrgyzstan aspires to hold
international human rights standards, and this is a clear instance in which it
is essential. If the Kyrgyz authorities do not retrieve Inandi from wherever he
is being held against his will, they will fail to meet their obligations as
required under international law and the Kyrgyz Constitution.”
Likely coincidentally, on June 9 Kyrgyz President Sadyr
Japarov made his first official visit to Turkey, where he met with Erdogan.
When asked if Japarov had broached the subject of the teacher’s disappearance
with his Turkish counterpart, Japarov’s spokesperson stated that “President
Japarov asked his colleague Recep Tayyip Erdogan about Orhan Inandi, who went
missing in Kyrgyzstan. Recep Tayyip Erdogan replied that he did not know him,
he had no information and that he didn’t want to hear anything about FETO
supporters.”
FETO – Fethullahist Terror Organisation – is the Turkish
government’s designation for the Gülen movement.
How the situation unfolds will demonstrate much about
Kyrgyzstan’s new president’s relations with Turkey.
Since taking office last year, Japarov has identified Turkey
as a key partner for Kyrgyzstan in both economic and security matters,
underlined by his trip to Turkey last week.
If Inandi’s disappearance is indeed the work of the Turkish
secret services – and the evidence appears to be in favour of such a conclusion
– the operation would likely have been carried out with at least the consent of
Kyrgyz authorities.
If this were to be the case, then Japarov would be
implicated in a major human rights scandal – perhaps validating fears that his
presidency will see a return of authoritarian, strong man politics.
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