Photo: Senat RP/Polish Senate via Wikimedia Commons
By EUGENE CHUDNOVSKY • 11/29/16 12:01
On July 26, Gursel Duzenli, a popular professor of engineering at Sakarya University, was eating at his home in Turkey with his wife and three children. Suddenly, a swarm of police officers flooded the house. For four hours they searched the house and garden for evidence of contact with the organization of Fethullah Gullen, a Turkish religious and political figure living in exile in the United States who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses of orchestrating the failed coup d’etat on July 15.
After finding nothing of interest, the police confiscated all electronic devices belonging to the family, including the children’s iPads. They detained Duzenli but assured his wife that he would return home shortly and would be able to communicate with her by phone while in police custody.
None of that turned out to be true.
Duzenli was kept in a prison cell of the local police precinct for eight days. He was insulted by the officers and denied access to cold water despite scorching summer heat. On the ninth day at midnight, Duzenli was brought to the courthouse and officially arrested. According to his lawyer, the judge never read Duzenli’s file and did not ask any questions.