Erdogan calls detained rights activists Western spies

Erdogan also accused the activists of working to "divide" his country.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Ten human rights defenders Turkish police arrested earlier this month were spies working for Western governments, alleged Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.

Erdogan was speaking at his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) weekly parliamentary convention in a televised speech when he accused the activists of working to “divide” his country.

Last week, pro-government media claimed authorities found a map showing Kurdish-majority regions in the Middle East including provinces in Turkey’s south and east as Kurdistan in a computer that belonged to the Swedish national Ali Gharavi.

Gharavi, an IT consultant, was among the detained along with the Director of Amnesty International (AI) in Turkey Idil Eser.

The Turkish President said the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands were engaging “in an incomprehensible” anti-Turkey agenda.

“You won’t let the President of Turkey and his ministers speak in your country while your spies run wild in [Turkish] hotels, dividing my country on maps,” Erdogan said.

The Turkish leader’s comments pointed to German and Dutch authorities preventing him in the past months from holding rallies on their soil.

A Turkish court last week ordered Gharavi, Eser, and four others advocates to be kept in jail pending their trial while releasing the other four arrested in a hotel meeting in Istanbul’s Buyukada island.

Erdogan accused Western nations of spilling blood whenever “they found an opportunity” and slammed the US for supporting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that is spearheading the war on the Islamic State in Syria.

“All this is happening openly. You are either going to be allied with us on equal grounds or receive a reaction for your disrespectfulness,” Erdogan continued.

“I want to state that we will continue stamping on their spies,” he added.

 

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany