Time for the UAE to answer for the crime it committed against Mehmet Ali Öztürk

The UAE's perception of democratic developments in the Middle East as a threat to itself seems to have driven it to adopt a conspiratorial style of politics that supports and organizes coups everywhere. Clandestinely supporting terror, along with every kind of lie, deceit and act of violence, is an inevitable part of this style of conspiracism. Branding democratic forces as "terrorists", and, in order to be able to do this, committing in their name, if necessary, the very crimes that would get them convicted, is likewise a result of this conspiratorial activity. That is why we can see it organizing al-Shabaab terror in Somalia and similar organizations in Syria, while in Yemen, fighting the Houthis on the one hand and cooperating with them elsewhere, betraying both its ally Saudi Arabia and the legitimate government they officially support together.

In Libya, it provides the coup-maker Haftar with the idea of branding the representatives of the UN-recognized legitimate government in Tripoli as "terrorists" as a pretext for his move. Meanwhile, the most fanatical takfiri Madkhali groups, together with mercenaries brought from Sudan and from Africa, try to organize the coup against the legitimate government in Haftar's ranks.

As the UAE's activities of this kind are exposed day by day, it is seen to be openly targeting Turkey too. Because Turkey, by representing most successfully the very democracy that is the UAE's nightmare, constitutes a model for all the Arab peoples. Turkey actually has no concern about being a model for others. It wants and practices democracy because it deems democracy worthy of its own people. Democracy in itself is the UAE's nightmare. What Gargash calls the Brotherhood is in reality nothing other than democracy. The UAE's nightmare is not the Brotherhood, it is democracy. If it needs to do itself a favor, the UAE needs to get rid of this fear of democracy.

We had said that, because of this fear, Attorney Gülden Sönmez had begun to hold the UAE to account for some of the crimes it has committed. Some time ago Sönmez, together with a group of lawyers from Britain and the US, filed a complaint with the international criminal court against MbZ and Muhammad Dahlan over the crimes against humanity they committed in Yemen. The case on this matter is continuing in Britain.

During the past week, Attorney Sönmez, together with Attorney Mete Gençer, also submitted, with an Urgent Appeal, to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention their petitions complaining of the crimes committed against the Turkish businessman Mehmet Ali Öztürk and his wife Emine Öztürk.

Öztürk, who visited Dubai with his wife for a food fair on 20 February 2018, was detained while in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying by official personnel who approached them and put a sack over his head; he was taken to a place in the desert, interrogated under severe torture and forced to give certain statements. Although there was no evidence whatsoever about the crimes attributed to him, and although the attributed crimes did not even have any connection with the UAE, he was sentenced to life on the basis of statements fabricated through made-up evidence and accusations, without being granted a proper right of defense, or even the right to an interpreter.

During his interrogation, Öztürk was laid down in cold water; he was held with iron tied to his back, with his arms stretched out in a bowing posture of rukuʿ, without being allowed to sleep for 3 days; when he fell, cold water was poured on him and he was beaten; although he said he had suffered strokes several times, he was lifted from where he fell by being struck on the head with kicks and punches. A towel-like thing was put over his head and water was poured at mouth level in an attempt to drown him; because he was left without breath he fainted several times during the torture; he was kept waiting in the cold and held for a long time in a small cell; besides being left hungry, he was given injections, whose nature he did not know, while his hands and feet were tied. While such tortures were carried out continuously for the first 52 days, he was constantly beaten and insulted with shouting. When he fell and collapsed during the torture, sprays that gave a sensation of ice were sprayed on his body, and he was able to stay on his feet by praying. Naturally he lost 25 kilos in this process.

During all this torture, when he refused to speak against Turkey and, despite all the severe torture, did not agree to say what they wanted, one day they showed him a picture of his son Abdullah, who was studying at a university in the US, and told him they had taken pictures of his son entering and leaving his home in the US, and threatened to kill his son. At about the same time in the US, the FBI raided the student house of his son Abdullah Öztürk, questioned him repeatedly and for a time blocked his coming to Turkey.

This part of the matter is very important, because the US also took part in this torture and human rights violation. Indeed, he was also interrogated and tortured over his anti-US comments and posts on his own social media accounts about America's policies and the crimes it has committed. He has stated that in this process he understood that intelligence information and documents were constantly being exchanged with the US. Öztürk's posts about the US on his social media accounts are mostly posts in which he criticized the US because its weapons fell into the hands of the PKK/PYD and caused the deaths of civilians with those weapons.

When Öztürk was first brought before the prosecutor's office in the UAE, he reported the tortures, but no action was taken. However, this prosecutor stated to Öztürk that the US Consulate General in Istanbul was closely interested in him, that the Consulate was collecting information about him in Turkey and sharing this information with the UAE, and that it had even sent files.

When, despite the tortures, Öztürk did not accept what he was asked to do and did not speak to the camera, he was referred to the Court and, in a so-called trial with a fabricated file, was sentenced to life imprisonment on the charge of supporting terrorism. Öztürk, who spent a total of 1 year in solitary confinement, was afterwards transferred to a prison, but was subjected to ill-treatment there as well. In the application that was made, it was stated that al-Wathba Prison is a prison with very harsh and poor conditions, and that, because its conditions are inhumane, it has been the subject of a great many complaints. The UAE systematically commits the violations that are the subject of complaints, and there is a quite serious number of complaints on this matter in the UN mechanisms. There are numerous applications stating that many foreigners are held in this way, taken to unknown places, interrogated under torture and cut off from contact with the outside world.

It is very clear here that the UAE is committing a serious crime against humanity. However, it is seen that the US Consulate General in Istanbul is also a partner in this crime. For this reason, it appears that the accounting demanded by Öztürk's lawyers will include not only the UAE but also the US Consulate General in Istanbul.