Terrorism and Criminal Organisation Accusations
The claim that materials were smuggled out of the foundation
Distorted
Claim
Fact
The claim dates from a week after the Furkan Foundation operation of 30 January 2018. In the boot of a car stopped on suspicion in Adana on 7 February 2018, materials belonging to the foundation were found.
The list of what was found is written out item by item in the report: one laptop computer, one mobile telephone, one computer case, 1,000 magazines, 850 magazine supplements, 18 handbooks, 30 posters and 38 CDs. All of it is the foundation's own publications and its own office equipment; there is not a single item that it is forbidden to carry or to keep.
The report's headline says only that "documents were found". The word "smuggled" appears in the body of the text and is presented as an established finding. No basis is given for that finding: it is not written out of which building, on which date, or contrary to which decision the materials were taken.
The materials were also laid out on the ground and photographed. This is a form of presentation used for weapons and drugs seizures; applied to magazines, the report stops being a conveying of information and turns into a work of imagery.
Objection came from within the security apparatus itself as well: the Adana Provincial Police Directorate reacted against the magazines taken in the searches being brought to the directorate.
Why this label, "Distorted"?
The part that is true is this: on 7 February 2018 a car was stopped, materials belonging to the foundation were found in the boot, and the driver was taken into custody. We do not deny this.
But this is not a fault. For an institution to carry its own magazine in a car is ordinary. The distortion lies not in the finding itself but in the verb fitted over it: the difference between "were found" and "were smuggled" is an accusation whose grounds are never told to the reader.
What did the report say?
On the morning of 7 February 2018, at 09:39, a report went out under this headline: "Documents belonging to the Furkan Foundation were found in a stopped car". The standfirst stated that documents belonging to the foundation, whose managers had been taken into custody and to whose administration a trustee had been appointed, had been seized in a car stopped on suspicion in Adana.
What was in the boot?
The report counts off what was seized one by one:
- one laptop computer, one mobile telephone, one computer case,
- 1,000 magazines and 850 magazine supplements,
- 18 handbooks, 30 posters, 38 CDs.
There is nothing forbidden on the list. The magazine is the foundation's own publication, which it has been bringing out for years; the handbooks and the posters are likewise the foundation's own printed material. Printing them, carrying them and distributing them are none of them an offence. The number being high does not change their nature: for a publishing institution to have thousands of copies on hand is an indication not of what that institution does, but of how much it prints.
Who made the finding that they were "smuggled"?
The report's headline carries no accusation of an offence; it says that "documents were found". The claim appears in the body of the text: it is written that, in the investigation they carried out, the teams established that the materials had been smuggled out of the foundation's buildings.
There are two separate things in a single sentence. The first is the concrete finding: these materials were in the boot. The second is an interpretation of intent: they had been smuggled out of there. The report conveys the two with the same certainty. Yet no basis at all is given for the interpretation: it is not written out of which building, on which date, or contrary to whose decision the materials were taken. When the owner of an item and the institution carrying it are one and the same, it must also be explained separately against whom the act of "smuggling" was committed; the report does not do this either.
The photograph laid out on the ground
The report's image shows the materials laid out on the ground and photographed from above. This arrangement is a familiar form of presentation, used for weapons and drugs seizures; when readers see it, they "understand" what has happened before they read what is written. When the same arrangement is applied to magazines, the impression the report leaves changes completely, even though the objects in the middle have not changed.
This is work done by presentation, not by journalism. Had what came out of the boot been a weapon, the photograph would have given information; when it is a magazine, the photograph gives no information, it stands in place of it.
The objection came from inside the apparatus
At this point there is no need to relay a comment from outside. The Adana Provincial Police Directorate reacted against the magazines taken in the searches being brought to the Police Directorate. That is, the assessment that the practice was disproportionate was made inside the very institution that was a party to the events.
Where the report stands in the sequence
This report does not stand on its own; it lies inside the wave of reports that followed the operation of 30 January 2018. On 31 January 2018, the 350,000 lira that came out of the safe; on 7 February 2018, the magazines in the boot; on 27 February 2018, "a 3-million-lira racket with fake receipts". What all three have in common is the same thing: an ordinary finding has been told with an extraordinary word.
The information on this page belongs to the operation of 30 January 2018 and to the 2018–2019 case file that followed it. It should not be confused with any other ongoing judicial process.