Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
MIT badge

Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı ( Turkish for National Intelligence Organization ; MIT) is the Turkish intelligence service and is based in Ankara .

The secret service was founded in 1926 under the name Millî Emniyet Hizmeti Riyâseti . MIT sees itself in the tradition of the Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa (“Special Organization”) and the Karakol Cemiyeti (“Police Committee”) in the Ottoman Empire . It has had its current name since 1965.

task

According to Law No. 2937 of January 1, 1984, the tasks of the secret service are to protect Turkish territory and the Turkish people , maintain state integrity , preserve the continued existence, independence and security of Turkey, as well as its constitution and constitutional order. His areas of responsibility also include counter-espionage and other subversive activities directed against Turkey .

Secret Service Act of 2014

In 2014, the secret service law was changed in essential points. This was the first change in the law since the coup generals made the MİT more of a military tool in 1980 . With the new secret service law, the MİT got a massive expansion of competence. Today the Turkish army has largely been pushed out of the secret service apparatus. The new law will further reduce the transparency and accountability of the Turkish state and further curtail press freedom and the privacy of citizens, said Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey expert with Human Rights Watch on the law.

One of the new competencies is that the secret service can request data from public and private corporations without objection. The MİT may request internal business data as well as data about customers from companies and force the disclosure.

Since then, the intelligence chief has only had to report to the Prime Minister. The employees enjoy de facto impunity . Investigations against secret service employees of the MİT because of criminal or civil law facts must first be reported by the Turkish public prosecutor to the MİT chief. The investigations can then be blocked with reference to higher security-relevant circumstances. There is also a risk of high penalties if MİT activities are reported. Since the mirror affair 1962 in Germany no longer conceivable, can in Turkey journalists and publishers with be occupied prison terms of between four and ten years if they publish secret of the service material.

management

The MİT is accountable to the President , the Prime Minister , the Chief of the General Staff and the Secretary General of the National Security Council , but is solely subordinate to the Prime Minister's Office of Turkey .

The intelligence service is headed by a State Secretary ( müsteşar ). According to Act No. 2937, Section 29, members of the MİT are only allowed to testify to other authorities “in cases in which the confidentiality of the mission and the interests of the state are imperative” with the permission of the State Secretary. Since May 25, 2010 the position has been filled by Hakan Fidan .

Competencies and methods

In order to accomplish its tasks, the MİT has not only the right to unrestricted access to all state information but also full police authority , which fundamentally distinguishes its authorizations from those of the German intelligence services ( BND , BfV ), which have no police rights.

In addition, with the permission of the Prime Minister, the service may also prosecute criminal offenses outside its area of ​​responsibility.

In 2012, MİT took over the administration of the GES electronic surveillance system from the military outside of Ankara, which among other things gave the secret service the opportunity to listen to phone calls and read e-mails.

history

Hakan Fidan is now the fourth civilian to head the MİT. Until 1992 the service was always headed by a general in the Turkish military. The daily Taraf in particular reported repeatedly on the activities of the MİT, such as its data collections on opposition entrepreneurs or on officials who might belong to religious movements such as the Hizmet movement of the preacher Fethullah Gülen . According to the Secret Service Act of 2014, the newspaper no longer dares to do this.

In the summer of 2014, the gendarmerie stopped three trucks on the way to Syria in the Turkish province of Adana . The public prosecutor wanted to investigate, but a blackout was imposed because the MİT was supposedly transporting fighters in Syria. However, when the gendarmerie and the public prosecutor's office did not let themselves be deterred and found Russian weapons systems in the trucks, the governor of Adana Hüseyin Avni Cos intervened directly and managed to terminate the investigation. The then Prime Minister and later President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared publicly: "You are not allowed to stop any MİT truck, you have no authority to do so! These trucks were transporting humanitarian aid."

The case became public because a hacking group published the secret document of the case, whereupon the Turkish government blocked all sites that reported it. A court ordered the blocking of Twitter and Facebook if they did not delete the relevant content and all websites that reported on the case would have to be closed, the judges ruled. The pursuit of the publication resulted in the Cumhuriyet trial .

In December 2018, Correctiv and Frontal 21 jointly reported how Gülen supporters were abducted by the MİT .

Activities in Germany

The Turkish secret service is also active in Germany. Around 2.5 million people of Turkish and Kurdish descent live in the Federal Republic of Germany . According to journalist Ali Solmadz, the MİT has, in contrast to other foreign intelligence services in Germany, a broad network of employees and structures. He assumes that hundreds of agents of Turkish origin work in companies, travel agencies and in key positions for the MİT. According to Somaldz, official bodies have confirmed that 800 Turkish secret service employees are working abroad. However, the number of people who work for the MİT or provide information to it is certainly higher.

Observers assume that he will also take action against political opponents of the ruling AKP party. This assumption is also supported by the fact that the head of the service, Hakan Fidan, was an active AKP politician. In 2015, three men were charged before the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz who allegedly spied on various opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Germany on behalf of the MİT. The main defendant, Muhammed Taha Gergerlioglu, is believed to be a former adviser to Erdoğan. The federal prosecutor's office accused the accused of spying on Kurds and Alevis in Germany , among others . The AKP critic and founder of the Gülen movement, Fethullah Gülen , was also spied on, according to the prosecutor.

In the course of the attempted coup in Turkey in July 2016, experts estimated that the MİT entertained around 6000 informants and thus at least one informant among 500 German Turks in the Federal Republic. The agent network surpasses that of the former Stasi and is no longer only concerned with investigating, but also with repression.

At the end of March 2017, it became known that the MİT may have spied on suspected supporters of the Gülen movement in Germany on a large scale. On the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, the head of the MİT Hakan Fidan gave the President of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) Bruno Kahl a list of relevant people, reported the research association NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung . The list includes the data of 300 people and 200 clubs, schools and other institutions. Registration addresses, cell phone and landline numbers and, in many cases, photos of those affected are listed. B. were recorded by surveillance cameras.

According to the research network, Kahl forwarded the list to the federal government and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution . The Federal Criminal Police Office and the Attorney General were also informed accordingly; later the police and constitutional protection authorities of the federal states. According to information from WDR, NDR and SZ, individual federal states warned those affected in so-called endangered speeches . It is important for the LKAs to warn people of possible repression in Turkey if they travel there, said a spokesman. In addition, the NRW police warned against entering Turkish diplomatic institutions in Germany, as these are protected by the Vienna Convention .

On March 28, 2017, the German Federal Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation into suspected espionage in Germany against unknown members of the MİT.

List of directors

Surname Assumption of office Detachment
1 Avni Kantan July 14, 1965 March 2, 1966
2 Mehmet Fuat Dogu March 2, 1966 March 27, 1971
3 Nurettin Ersin 2nd August 1971 July 25, 1973
4th Bülent Turk July 26, 1973 February 27, 1974
5 Bahattin Özülker February 28, 1974 September 26, 1974
6th Bülent Turk September 26, 1974 November 24, 1974
7th Hamza Gürgüç November 25, 1974 July 13, 1978
8th Adnan Ersöz July 13, 1978 19th November 1979
9 Bülent Turk 19th November 1979 7th September 1981
10 Burhanettin Bigali 7th September 1981 August 14, 1986
11 Hayri Ündül 5th September 1986 August 29, 1988
12 Teoman Koman August 29, 1988 August 27, 1992
13 Sönmez Köksal November 9, 1992 February 11, 1998
14th Şenkal Atasagun February 11, 1998 June 11, 2005
15th Emre Taner June 11, 2005 May 25, 2010
16 Hakan Fidan May 25, 2010 currently in office

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tessa Hofmann : Speaking with one voice - against genocide. In: Persecution, expulsion and extermination of Christians in the Ottoman Empire 1912–1922. LIT Verlag, Berlin 2007, p. 39.
  2. ↑ www.mit.gov.tr ( Memento from October 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Secret Service State Turkey - Markus Beys Blog - derStandard.at
  4. ↑ Hasnain Kazim: Turkish secret service is said to have delivered weapons to Al-Qaida. In: Spiegel online , January 17, 2015.
  5. ↑ https://www.zdf.de/politik/frontal-21/die-verschleppten-100.html
  6. ↑ "secret" 4/99 Ali Somaldz: Germany as a central field of operation of the Turkish secret service WİTH
  7. ↑ http://www.zdf.de/frontal-21/frontal-21-5989374.html
  8. ↑ Turkish secret service: Did Erdogan spy on opponents in Germany? In: Tagesspiegel , July 8, 2015.
  9. ↑ Erdogan's agents threaten Turks in Germany , Die Welt, August 21, 2016.
  10. ↑ Turkish secret service: Hundreds of Turks spied on in Germany . In: The time . March 27, 2017, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 28, 2017]).
  11. ↑ tagesschau.de: Investigations: Turkish agents active in Germany? Retrieved March 28, 2017 .
  12. ↑ MIT secret service: Attorney General investigates Turkish espionage in Germany. In: Spiegel online. March 28, 2017, accessed February 28, 2020 .