How Turkey is becoming a snitching paradise The aftermath of the July 15 coup attempt has seen a surge of informants in Turkey, compounding an already terrible climate of fear. REUTERS/Umit Bektas.

By تولاي چتنگولچ

أكت 24, 2016

Turkey's intelligence network seems to be expanding. Having reached neighborhood headmen, the state's intelligence tentacles are now spreading to ordinary citizens. In August 2015, amid mounting violence and terrorist attacks in the mainly Kurdish southeast, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged mukhtars — village and neighborhood leaders — to back security forces' intelligence-gathering efforts. "I expect support on this issue from our mukhtars as well. I know my mukhtars [are aware] what kind of people live in which house. They [need to] go to their governors or police chiefs and report this to them in an appropriate and calm manner," he said. Around the same time, the authorities launched an electronic Mukhtar Information System, ostensibly to expand intelligence gathering to every household.

Now, in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt, ordinary citizens are feeding intelligence services. Haberturk daily reported Oct. 1 that the number of tipoffs to the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has exceeded 10,000 per month, up from about 2,000 before the putsch. Similarly, the number of visitors on the MIT's website has grown from 90,000 to 250,000 per month. The main target of the informants is the Gulen community or the Fethullah Gulen Terror Organization (FETO), as Ankara calls it, which stands accused of the coup plot. With a fivefold increase in tipoffs, the people's enthusiasm seems to be strengthening the informant mechanism. The MIT website has a "How can you help?" section, which includes a form for the person's name, surname, telephone number, email and residential address. Then there is the "Your message" box, in which citizens can write the information they want to convey. Staying anonymous is also possible. Citizens are assured that their messages are protected by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption against "the intervention of third parties" and that "any information, which is not imaginary and does not involve grudge and rests on real facts/evidence, is important for MIT and is being evaluated."

The MIT's emphasis on evidence is important. However, when it comes to the fivefold increase in tipoffs after the putsch, there is one detail that should be carefully considered. Most of the tipoffs come complete with the names and telephone numbers of the informers, even though they are not obliged to reveal their identities. This suggests that people might be seeing the tipoffs as a way to shield themselves against being stigmatized as FETO members. Such pre-emptive efforts at self-protection would make perfect sense, given the ferocity of the hunt for Gulenists, which has led even Erdogan to admit that irrelevant people are being vilified. As such, intelligence services are supposed to filter the tipoffs with care. Sezgin Tanrikulu, a human rights lawyer and deputy for the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), is concerned that the tipoff mechanism is a recipe for human rights violations. He told Al-Monitor, "Encouraging citizens to snitching is objectionable according to the principles of rule of law. Uncovering crimes is, ultimately, the duty of the state's security organs."

"Citizens' views on crimes are important, but in situations where their accuracy is very difficult to test, snitching leads to myriad human rights violations. False tipoffs result in people being unfairly accused, stigmatized and detained. Hence, encouraging people to inform on others and acting on the basis of such tipoffs alone is wrong," the CHP lawmaker said.

He stressed that said tipoffs were different from information "aimed at resolving a murder or uncovering drug trafficking" and warned, "This leads people to grow suspicious of each other, eradicates trust and damages societal peace."