Repression in Turkey: accusation of espionage

First Yonca Verdioğlu Şık was taken from her apartment. Then the program coordinator of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Istanbul had to answer some questions from the public prosecutor. In the end she was allowed to go home, but she is not allowed to leave Turkey for the time being.

Şık is under investigation. The suspicion: “political or military espionage”. But her interrogation was apparently about something else. Investigators questioned Şık about 205 incoming payments to her private account. Her lawyers explained that 180 of them were salary payments. The rest were reimbursed work expenses, said Şık.

Her foundation work and collaboration with the LGBTI+ organization Kaos GL were also the subject of the survey. However, her legal representation explained that she was not asked any questions about specific acts of espionage.

What exactly the public prosecutor's office is using as a basis for the serious accusation remains unclear. According to the Turkish news portal T24, a secrecy order applies to the investigation file. This also restricts the defense's access to the files.

Born and raised in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Şık studied German and women's studies at the University of Istanbul. She initially worked in the private sector and has been employed by the Heinrich Böll Foundation since 2008. Since then, she has worked professionally on democracy, human rights and feminist issues.

She has accompanied projects on the Kurdish question, coming to terms with the military coup of 1980 and combating violence against women. Her work also includes collaboration with queer organizations. These are issues that have been politically contested in Turkey for years.

However, it's not just their own work that could play a role in the process. Her husband, investigative journalist Ahmet Şık, was already in custody in 2017. At that time, she publicly advocated for her husband's release and said: "I am no longer Yonca, but Ahmet Şık's wife."

Now she herself is the focus as the accused. Her husband is now a member of the opposition Turkish Workers' Party TİP and has been investigating the fund scandal for weeks, which caused a stir in Turkey in September. Şık submitted parliamentary questions and made the allegations of manipulated share prices public. As a member of parliament, however, he now enjoys immunity.

The TİP suspects that the arrest of Şık is intended to put pressure on her husband. “They are trying to silence him by threatening his relatives,” TİP party leader Erkan Baş said on Tuesday.

It remains unclear at this point whether Şık's work for the foundation or her husband's research is the reason for the investigation. In Turkey, it is no longer just opposition politicians and journalists who are targeted by the judiciary - but also people like Yonca Verdioğlu Şık, who are committed to human rights.