Fuat Avni
Fuat Avni or fuatavni was the self-name of a Turkish group, which via an account of the short message service Twitter , as well as sometimes also via Facebook , secret internal information from the party leadership of the Party for Justice and Development (AKP) and the direct environment of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed to disclose. Publications under this name began after the 2013 corruption scandal in Turkey became known . The current account @fuatavni_f now has 2.27 million followers despite a state-imposed access ban and is considered a “Twitter phenomenon” in Turkey, whose tweets were promptly picked up and passed on by national media. The Turkish Telecommunications Authority blocked the account for Turkish Internet users at the request of the Ankara Public Prosecutor's Office. Turkish and international observers such as B. Der Spiegel come to the conclusion that the information disseminated by Fuat Avni is not speculation, but rather sound inside knowledge of a whistleblower . According to reports from the Turkish media on July 20, 2016, the people who ran the Fuat Avni Twitter account were arrested.
Thematic focus
Fuat Avni claims to publish details of confidential talks between the AKP party leadership and the Turkish Presidential Palace. The main topics are the corruption scandal in Turkey in 2013, alleged electoral manipulation by the AKP, alleged repression against opposition forces before decisive elections, the development of relations between the AKP and the Gülen movement , foreign policy assessments by party and state leaders as well as alleged covert operations by the Turkish Security apparatus and especially the Turkish secret service Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı (MİT) at home and abroad, which harmed the country, but benefited the party and Erdoğan personally.
Fuat Avni has repeatedly published lists of government critics, mostly journalists, who are about to be arrested. In fact, the arrests were timely - often based on allegations that the journalists formed a terrorist group. In addition, Fuat Avni predicted the arrest and prosecution of police officers and prosecutors who had investigated officials and politicians of the ruling AKP in the corruption scandal or who were alleged to be close to the Gülen movement.
tonality
The account holder often concluded his statements with harsh, threatening and sometimes insulting words to President Erdoğan, who, according to Fuat Avnis, awaited extensive judicial investigations after his term in office. One of his most frequent closing phrases addressed to Erdogan was: "Korkma, titre", which means something like: "Do not be afraid, tremble". Erdoğan was almost never mentioned by name by the account owner, but was called BB (abbreviation of Başbakan, Turkish for Prime Minister), Tyrann, Basçalan ("Oberdieb", a Turkish corruption of the title Prime Minister) and Yezid ( Turkish name for Yazid I. ).
With the words “You beautiful people” (Turkish: “güzel insanlar”) Fuat Avni occasionally addressed the Turkish population directly and promised them that “better times” would soon be waiting for Turkey. In order to underline its proximity to the control center of power, and thus to Erdoğan, the account often used formulations such as B. "I see your eyes" or "I am as close as your breath".
Self-assessment of motives and approaches
The Istanbul office manager of Vocativ magazine, Elçin Poyrazlar, said she corresponded with Fuat Avni by direct message and conducted an interview in this way.
When asked about his motives, he said that he wanted to expose the misconduct of the then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the oligarchs surrounding him. He chose Twitter because Erdoğan was particularly angry about the tweets of the protesters in the course of the Gezi protests. He plans to continue until the government collapses.
There is no group behind the Fuat Avni account, just him. He is not dependent on external information, as he has been working in sensitive areas for the ruling AKP party for years, and a lot of information ends up on his desk by itself. Only he and Allah know who Fuat Avni is. In addition, without his knowledge of his activities as Fuat Avni, there are personal meetings with Erdoğan. However, he could not reveal how often.
When asked whether he had any connections with Fethullah Gülen , he replied that he had been following their activities for years and largely approved of them. Furthermore, there would be no connections whatsoever.
He runs his Twitter account with a "super secure system", which is why there have been attacks on his account, but despite extensive efforts by the Turkish security authorities, it can neither be deleted nor identified.
Meaning of the username "Fuat Avni"
In the interview with Vocativ magazine conducted by Elçin Poyrazlar, Fuat Avni claims to have used other names before his time as Fuat Avni. He finally decided on the name Fuat Avni, because it means "helping heart" and he considers the meaning to be appropriate.
Criticism of the Fuat Avnis approach
Ahmet Hakan, an influential columnist for the newspaper Hürriyet , who is seen as an exposed and harsh critic of the AKP government, spoke out critically of Fuat Avni in December 2014. He was right "once or twice", but one should not pretend that his claims are based on reliable knowledge. Fuat Avni is also prone to unfounded exaggerations.
Özlem Çerçioğlu, Mayor of Aydın and member of the opposition Republican People's Party ( Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi , CHP), reportedly filed a criminal complaint against the operator or operators of the Fuat Avni account in September 2014. There it was alleged that Erdoğan blackmailed her with information about her allegedly corrupt behavior and forced her to join the AKP. She then spoke of a cyber dirt campaign.
President Erdoğan reacted publicly to Fuat Avni's activities for the first time in February 2015 during an event in Malatya. He criticized the fact that Fuat Avni, without naming his name, was operating from behind the scenes without having to give an account and said: “Come out when you are a man. Why do you stay hidden? "
Speculation about Fuat Avni's true identity
The media suspected a person or group behind the account who is in the immediate vicinity of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , but who also has connections to the Gülen movement, which is under political pressure. The Turkish media, which are particularly pro-government, have repeatedly made headlines that Fuat Avni has been exposed. They often referred to opposition-minded journalists and former police and judicial officers. At the time, no evidence could be provided for these claims. Nonetheless, the pro-government newspapers Sabah and Takvim claimed that the account was being carried out by Emre Uslu, a former investigator and columnist for the opposition newspaper Taraf , which he immediately denounced as a baseless accusation.
Hüseyin Gülerce, a columnist for the pro-government newspaper Star, claimed that Fuat Avni was part of a plan devised by the Gulen movement in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency to discredit the AKP and prevent it from winning the election.
State investigation
The 5th Istanbul Peace Court (5th Sulh Ceza Hakimliği) has found the Twitter account Fuat Avnis guilty of baseless accusations, insults, influencing the judiciary and harmful abuse of freedom of the Internet and has blocked access to Turkish users. According to media reports, the Turkish secret service MİT also investigated those responsible.
The Turkish government has repeatedly requested the deletion and disclosure of the account owner's connection details on Twitter . However, these concerns were rejected by Twitter with reference to freedom of expression. Twitter also announced that it would take legal action against the ban on the user, as the court ruling that caused the ban contravenes the constitutional right to freedom of expression.
arrest
Turkish media reported on July 20, 2016 that several people connected to the Twitter account had been arrested the previous day. The fact that the last tweet by @fuatavni_f was published one day after the arrests (on July 20, 2016) confirms this. According to the Anadolu Ajansı , Mustafa "Akif" Koçyiğit, then an advisor to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, provided the FETÖ with insider information and thus served as Fuat Avni's primary source of information. For Mustafa Koçyiğit, the public prosecutor's office for "espionage" and "membership in an armed terrorist organization" has demanded 42 years and 6 months imprisonment.
Accounts used by Fuat Avni
Due to the access bans imposed by the Turkish courts and authorities, Fuat Avni often changed his accounts. According to the journalist Nazlı Ilıcak, Fuat Avni used the account @fuatavni until his blockade on August 5, 2014, the @fuatavnifuat account until January 21, 2015 and the @fuatavni_f account from January 21, 2015 until July 20, 2016 .
There are now various fake accounts that use the name Fuat Avni to either parody or discredit its activities. In addition, there is an account with @FuatAvniEng that makes the Fuat Avnis tweets available in English, but not with the same frequency as the original account.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ Fuat Avni: “Twitter account @fuatavni_f” accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Yahoo! News: "Turkey arrests 24 in new raids on wire-tapping suspects" accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Spiegel Online : "Erdogan's adversary: Turkey blocks mysterious whistleblower", accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ a b Fuat Avni Başbakanlık'ta yakalandı!
- ↑ Foreign Policy : “This Mysterious Twitter User Predicts Turkish Government Crackdowns”. Retrieved September 14, 2015
- ↑ USA Today : Turkish police target media offices in raid , accessed September 14, 2015
- ↑ Fuat Avni: “Tweet from September 11, 2015” , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Fuat Avni: “Tweet from May 28, 2015” , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Fuat Avni: “Tweet from June 2, 2015” , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ vocative: "An Interview With Turkey's Tweeting Deep Throat" , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ vocative: "An Interview With Turkey's Tweeting Deep Throat" , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Hürriyet : “Hadi Haşim Abi kaldır şu barajı!” (“Los brother Hasim, abolish the threshold clause”) , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Haberler.com: "Çerçioğlu, @fuatavnifuat Hakkında Suç Duyurusunda Bulundu" ("Çerçioğlu files criminal charges against @fuatavnifuat") , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Hürriyet Daily News : "Erdoğan challenges Turkey's most wanted whistleblower" , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Eurotopics: “The enemy inside?” ( Memento of September 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Cumhuriyet : "MİT'in 'Fuat Avni' dediği Emre Uslu'dan salvolar" (" Salvos from Emre Uslu, who was called Fuat Avni by the MİT") ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 14, 2015
- ↑ Star: "Fuat Avni, paralel yapı ve CIA" ("Fuat Avni, the parallel structure and the CIA") , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ CNN Türk : Twitter'dan @fuatavni itirazı (“@ fuatavni-objection from Twitter”) , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Sözcü : "MİT Fuat Avni'yi buldu!" ("MİT has determined Fuat Avni!") , Accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ Internet Haber: “Fuat Avni için twitter harekete geçti!” (“Twitter is moving for Fuat Avni”) , accessed on September 14, 2015
- ↑ 'Fuat Avni' hesabını yönetenler yakalandı (Kısa Seyfi kimdir?) . ( com.tr [accessed November 27, 2018]).
- ↑ Bugün : "Fuat Avni Emre Uslu mu" ("Is Emre Uslu Fuat Avni?") ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 14, 2015
