Open Grave: Western Media Memory Hole Pre-Dug for Turkey

Turkey would seem to have every element that makes the heart of an idealistic Western journo go pitty-pat:

 

Democracy under attack, journalists getting detained and beaten up, fascism on the march, moderate, middle-class protesters getting shredded by Islamic suicide bombers with alleged government connivance, rampant skullduggery in the run-up to a crucial election on November 1, Turkish government backing ISIL and murdering Kurds in northern Iraq, the overall horror presided over by a sinister supervillain from a palace with the size and aesthetic of an Atlantic City casino…

…add to that brave, eloquent and, most importantly, English-speaking local journalists desperate to get the word out.

Whaddya get today with a Google search for Turkey?

Turkey ‘shoot out with ISIS’ leaves police and suspects dead via the Beeb, with the Guardian, Reuters, ABC News & USA Today running the same story.

This action, I suspect, was a PR op meant to deflect attention from Turkey’s “soft on ISIL” rep, solidified by the fact that one of the suicide bombers who been able to perpetrate the horror at the Ankara train station thanks to zero security provided by the Turkish police was the member of a “well-known” ISIL cell, “well known” because the cell had also harbored his brother, the suicide bomber who had killed 32 Kurdish activists at Suruc on July 20.

What else did the Western media give us?

A couple stemwinders on Erdogan’s coalition options if the AKP doesn’t win an absolute majority on November 1;

And some joshing about Turkey playing with the idea of postponing daylight savings to avoid confusion on election day.

Inside Turkey, the “slaughter the usual suspects” ISIL story didn’t even make the top 3 at Hurriyet Daily News.  Readers continued their love affair with the account of the bizarre musings of a pro-Erdogan pundit in Canada:

A pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP) columnist has claimed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan would be the ‘caliph,’ or leader of Sunni Muslims in the world, under the much-anticipated presidential system.

Yeni Akit columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak said the rooms of the controversial presidential palace would be reserved for the representatives from nations under the caliphate, adding that Turkey’s caliphate had never been abolished.

“If Tayyip Erdoğan shifts to a presidential system, he will probably assign advisors from the regions under the caliphate and open representative agencies of all Islam Union nations in that 1,005-room [the presidential palace]…

Meanwhile, here’s some stories that showed up on Twitter in the last three days:

On Sept.2 #Turkey's @todayszamancom reported on gov’t plans to seize critical media. It happened today http://www.todayszaman.com/anasayfa_govt-plans-to-seize-critical-media-group-ahead-of-election_398081.html …

UNBELIEVABLE: There is not even a court judgement ordering a seizure of major conglomorate that owns TVs & newspaper. Sheer banditry.

The judge at Ankara 5th Penal Court of Peace, a year old court dubbed by #Erdogan as special project, orders seizure of #Turkey media group.

Those tweets courtesy of Abdullah Bozkurt ‏@abdbozkurt , a Zaman journalist.  Follow him!  Retweet him!

Here’s some interesting items I tweeted courtesy of Today’s Zaman (follow me! retweet me! @chinahand):

RTÜK may cancel contracts with stream providers over censorship http://www.todayszaman.com/national_rtuk-may-cancel-contracts-with-stream-providers-over-censorship_402290.html …

Only 25 percent believe ISIL responsible for Ankara bombings, survey reveals http://www.todayszaman.com/national_only-25-percent-believe-isil-responsible-for-ankara-bombings-survey-reveals_402175.html …

ISIL members housed in state-owned guesthouses, CHP deputy claims http://www.todayszaman.com/national_isil-members-housed-in-state-owned-guesthouses-chp-deputy-claims_402368.html …

CHP has secret Oslo documents that Kılıçdaroğlu claimed to have seen http://www.todayszaman.com/national_chp-has-secret-oslo-documents-that-kilicdaroglu-claimed-to-have-seen_402377.html … (this concerns rumors of a secret deal between Erdogan and Kurdish militants)

Bombs sent to ISIL by truck being exploded in Turkey now, says former deputy http://www.todayszaman.com/national_bombs-sent-to-isil-by-truck-being-exploded-in-turkey-now-says-former-deputy_402387.html …

And that’s in addition to the big bang/disappointing squib...

CHP deputies: gov't rejects probe into Turkey's role in Syrian chemical attack
http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_turkey-says-new-wave-of-syrian-refugees-will-head-for-europe_402329.html …

That's the allegation by opposition lawmakers that they have a dossier documenting Turkey’s organization of the notorious 2014 sarin gas attack at Ghouta, Syria, as a false flag operation, organized with the purpose of drawing the US into direct military action against Assad.

The US was ready to go to war over this incident, in which 1300 people died.  That’s four times as many people as died in the MH17 shootdown.  Even applying the “brown on the ground” casualty discount rate vs. air travelers, many of whom if not all were Western and middle class, the US intervention angle—and the corroboration the report apparently provides to Seymour Hersh’s story  —would seem to make it newsworthy.

But zip in the United States.  CounterPunch ran my story, basically a stub post blockquoting the Today’s Zaman report; five days later it’s still the top hit when you google “Turkey Syria Sarin”.

There are a multitude of excuses for not running with the various stories concerning Erdogan/AKP/deep state wet work coming out of Turkey. 

The stories are coming out courtesy of the CHP, an opposition party hoping for a big day on November 1 that will force the AKP to abandon single-party rule and enter a coalition with it; and they are running in Today’s Zaman, which is associated with the Gulen movement, once a BFF and now arch-enemy of Erdogan.  So there’s that whole election/grudge/bias/mudflinging angle.

But that’s a story in itself.  The AKP refused to enter into a coalition with the CHP after the last general election, in July 2015, preferring a hung parliament and betting on the possibility that “somehow” it would reverse its slide into unpopularity in order to do better on November 1 and preserve its one-party rule.  “Somehow” looks a lot like a terror/repression/suppression campaign against the AKP’s opponents, including bombing of opposition demonstrations, burning down opposition political offices, beating up of journalists, censoring and shutdown of undesirable media outlets…

Even if journos have decided to ignore their liberal bleeding heart leanings and get in touch with their cynical realpolitik side, there are still good Turkey stories out there to be covered.

There’s that story about Turkish consulates showering fake travel documents on Uyghurs to travel to Turkey, and maybe on to Syria to live in and fight from a rumored Uyghur militant colony near Idlib in Syria.  Zero interest; fortunately for posterity,  I blogged the stuffing out of that one.

There’s another interesting story line, about the refugee crisis, the biggest, most heartwrenchingesque thing going, from Hurriyet Daily News, the other big prestige Turkish daily with an English edition and international reach:

Turkey must make sure EU keeps promises - DIPLOMACY  

The "promises" relate to the long-stalled accession negotiations between the EU and Turkey.  The think tank expert says:

We have had a sudden revitalization in the process, and this is linked to the Syrian crisis and the influx of refugees to the EU…A new effort had to be made; some sweeteners had to be offered to Turkey. So we have some proposals from the EU to convince Turkey of a more cooperative approach." 

The “sweetener” discussions opened with an offer of Euro 3 billion from the EU.

Read any exploration in the Western press of the interesting possibility that there might be more to the outflow of refugees than a seemingly spontaneous hive-mind conclusion that there’s no going back to Syria—and the sudden incapacity of Turkey’s relief and border control apparatus might have something to do with Turkey’s demand for a haven/No Fly Zone for the in northern Syria for refugees and/or militants looking for some rest and recuperation…or else?

Didn’t think so.

Well, Today’s Zaman had this:

Turkey says new wave of Syrian refugees will head for Europe  

It contains the quote, "Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said Turkey should not be expected to turn itself into a 'concentration camp' for refugees," and goes on to say:

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday there were "strong indications" a new wave of migration was starting from Aleppo and renewed calls for a "safe zone" in Syria to protect civilians, an idea that has won little international backing. 

Kinda screams "refugee flows as TK weapon" doesn't it?  But *crickets*

As I said on Twitter, somebody is doing their job on Turkish news, and doing it well.  

Too bad "somebody" is not "journalists", instead it's a collective term for diplos and lobbyists inside and outside Turkey doing their best to keep a lid on the story of a US ally, European neighbor, and NATO member whose democracy is threatening to come apart at the seams. 

I will resist stepping into the rhetorical minefield of “Is Turkey worse than China.”  But I am willing to say “Western reporting on Turkey is worse than Western reporting on China.”

Turkish Whistleblowers Corroborate Seymour Hersh Report of False Flag Sarin Gas Attack in Syria

This is quite the bombshell delivered by two CHP deputies in the Turkish parliament and reported by Today's Zaman, one of the top dailies in Turkey.

It supports Seymour Hersh's reporting that the notorious sarin gas attack at Ghouta was a false flag orchestrated by Turkish intelligence in order to cross President Obama's chemical weapons "red line" and draw the United States into the Syria war to topple Assad.

If so, President Obama deserves credit for "holding the line" against the attack despite the grumbling and incitement of the Syria hawks at home and abroad.

And it also presents the unsavory picture of an al-Qaeda operative colluding with ISIL in a war crime that killed 1300 civilians.

I find the report credible, taking into full account the fact that the CHP (the rival left-center Kemalist party) and Today's Zaman (whose editor-in-chief, Bulent Kenes was recently detained on live TV for insulting Erdogan in a tweet) are on the outs with Erdogan.

Considering the furious reaction it can be expected to elicit from Erdogan and the Turkish government, the temerity of CHP and Today's Zaman in running with this story is a sign of how desperate their struggle against Erdogan has become.  Note that the author is shown only as "Columnist: Today's Zaman".

I expect the anti-Erodgan forces hope this will be a game changer in terms of U.S.and European support for Erdogan.

It will be very interesting to see if and how the media in the U.S. covers this story.  In case it doesn't acquire enough "legs" to make into US media, here are some choice bits from the Zaman piece:

CHP deputies: Gov’t rejects probe into Turkey’s role in Syrian chemical attack

Two deputies from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) have claimed that the government is against investigating Turkey's role in sending toxic sarin gas which was used in an attack on civilians in Syria in 2013 and in which over 1,300 Syrians were killed.

CHP deputies Eren Erdem and Ali Şeker held a press conference in İstanbul on Wednesday in which they claimed the investigation into allegations regarding Turkey's involvement in the procurement of sarin gas which was used in the chemical attack on a civil population and delivered to the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to enable the attack was derailed.

Taking the floor first, Erdem stated that the Adana Chief Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into allegations that sarin was sent to Syria from Turkey via several businessmen.

...

"The MKE [Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation] is also an actor that is mentioned in the investigation file. Here is the indictment. All the details about how sarin was procured in Turkey and delivered to the terrorists, along with audio recordings, are inside the file," Erdem said while waving the file.

Erdem also noted that the prosecutor's office conducted detailed technical surveillance and found that an al-Qaeda militant, Hayyam Kasap, acquired sarin, adding: "Wiretapped phone conversations reveal the process of procuring the gas at specific addresses as well as the process of procuring the rockets that would fire the capsules containing the toxic gas. However, despite such solid evidence there has been no arrest in the case. Thirteen individuals were arrested during the first stage of the investigation but were later released, refuting government claims that it is fighting terrorism," Erdem noted.

Over 1,300 people were killed in the sarin gas attack in Ghouta and several other neighborhoods near the Syrian capital of Damascus, with the West quickly blaming the regime of Bashar al-Assad and Russia claiming it was a "false flag" operation aimed at making US military intervention in Syria possible.

...

The purpose of the attack was allegedly to provoke a US military operation in Syria which would topple the Assad regime in line with the political agenda of then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government.

CHP deputy Şeker spoke after Erdem, pointing out that the government misled the public on the issue by asserting that sarin was provided by Russia. The purpose was to create the perception that, according to Şeker, “Assad killed his people with sarin and that requires a US military intervention in Syria.”

He also underlined that all of the files and evidence from the investigation show a war crime was committed within the borders of the Turkish Republic.

"The investigation clearly indicates that those people who smuggled the chemicals required to procure sarin faced no difficulties, proving that Turkish intelligence was aware of their activities. While these people had to be in prison for their illegal acts, not a single person is in jail. Former prime ministers and the interior minister should be held accountable for their negligence in the incident," Şeker further commented.

Erdem also added that he will launch a criminal complaint against those responsible, including those who issued a verdict of non-prosecution in the case, those who did not prevent the transfer of chemicals and those who first ordered the arrest of the suspects who were later released.

...

Erawan Shrine Bombing: Uyghurs, Turkey, & Passports…or Thailand, Human Trafficking, and Corruption...and Uyghur Patsies?

I’m still an agnostic on the Uyghurs dunnit theory, at least as far as the “aggrieved Uyghurs bombed the Erawan shrine to kill Chinese tourists in revenge for repatriation of Uyghurs to PRC” way.

The only things we know for sure right now is that a) the Thai government is anxious to manage & control this story b) the Thai police leaks like a sieve and c) one has to wonder if the government’s main priority is to put a pretty frame on this story and hang it up as soon as possible.

There appears to be a definite Uyghur element in the case, judging by the detentions of one suspect with a Uyghur name holding a PRC passport (that looks genuine) and another guy with a clumsily forged Turkish passport who, it is suspected, is probably a Uyghur.  Add to that a big stack of bogus Turkish passports--an inescapable element in the conveyor belt of PRC Uyghurs to havens in Turkey--and there's the makings of a plausible Uyghur angle.

Under pressure from the PRC, the Thai government had indeed decided to crack down on human trafficking of Uyghurs through Thailand facilitated by bogus Turkish travel documents.

To reduce the attractiveness of Thailand as a refugee highway, the Thai government decided to repatriate 109 Uyghurs, mainly men but also including 24 women, to the PRC in July 2015.

In order to defuse the outrage of Uyghurs and their sympathizers, the Thai government made a deal with the Turkish government at the same time to send 170 Uyghurs, mainly women and children, to go on to Turkey.  

The latter development went virtually unreported in the Turkish press, which is usually eager to trumpet the Turkish role as protector of the Uyghurs, which leads me to believe the release was soft-pedaled by prior agreement to avoid annoying the PRC.  Given this Turkish government involvement, I tend to discount theories attributing the attack to incensed Turkish hypernationalists a.k.a. The Grey Wolves.

Maybe the Thai government effort to take Thailand out of the Uyghur trafficking picture did not sit well with the Uyghur trafficking networks inside Thailand.  Judging from the people caught in the police dragnet, the traffickers seem to be staffed by Uyghur and Thai Muslims working out of some combination of profit and principle, and maybe they embarked upon a campaign of revenge.

But it seems to me more likely that the attack was linked to an overall crackdown on human trafficking, a business that implicates quite a few people in the Thai government and army.  Uyghurs, in my view, may have executed the bombings...and fulfilled an important role as convenient patsies.

For those of you who, like me, dwell in connect-the-dots-istan, here’s an interesting item from the Guardian from June 2015, in other words in the midst of the Uyghur repatriation effort and two months before the bombing:

Thailand’s state prosecutors are pressing charges against more than 100 people, including an army general, in a multinational human trafficking scandal that came to light after dozens of bodies were discovered in the south of the country earlier this year.

…

“The investigation showed it is a big syndicate. There were networks that brought them [the migrants] from overseas into the country systematically … The office of the attorney general, therefore, treats it as a very important case,” office spokesman Wanchai Roujanavong said.

The discovery has intensified international pressure on Thailand to crack down on smugglers. More than 50 people were arrested in a month, including local politicians, government officials, police, and a senior-ranking army officer who once oversaw human trafficking issues in the south.

Human rights groups have long accused Thai authorities of collusion in the trafficking industry, but officials have routinely denied the claims.

Apparently, “Thai authorities” included an army lieutenant general, Manas Kongpan, who was a kingpin in the south of Thailand, where most of the traffic (mainly of Bengalis and Rohingya to Malaysia) takes place.

The investigation was in the hands of the Thai police, which turned over its report to the Attorney General at the end of June.

Maybe the traffickers and their allies initiated a domestic terror campaign to punish and warn off the Thai government from prosecuting the case too aggressively.

This, to me, is a more convincing explanation of why the Erawan shrine was bombed than the “revenge on Chinese” angle.

If the intent was to kill Chinese tourists, why not bomb…Chinatown?  Why not a vicious attack on “the pilgrim filled Wat Mangkon Kamalawat, Bangkok's most important Chinese temple” as USA Today describes it? Or the Wat Traimit, “Chinatown’s number one attraction”?  For that matter, why not take a swing at the Chinese embassy?

Why set off a bomb near a Hindu shrine next to the Grand Hyatt?

After the bombing, there were several reports of unexploded devices at the scene.  If these reports are true (I haven't seen any followup), it looks like the makings of a “double tap” attack: an initial device goes off, drawing in first responders including police, who are the targets of the secondary devices.

But even if the target of the attack wasn’t the Thai police, I think the target was still Thai, not Chinese: specifically, Thai tourism.  Counting indirect effects, tourism might make up as much of 20% of Thai GDP; a chunk of GDP that is extremely vulnerable to terrorism.

Understandable, then, that the Thai police would be most uninterested in publicly exploring this motive, and encouraging the narrative of an attack on Chinese by aggrieved Uyghurs instead.

The other troublesome issue for the official story, of course, is that nobody has taken credit for the bombing.  No aggrieved Uyghur groups, no ETIM, no ISIS, nobody.  So I draw the inference that whatever beef the bombers had, it’s playing out in private fora, perhaps related to Thai government/security/police policy.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Uyghur-linked human traffickers actually committed the bombing; but maybe there was someone else behind them, assisting them in the construction of these relatively sophisticated devices, setting up escape routes, using them as cats’ paws and fall guys…and in the process publicly rolling up a Uyghur trafficking operation facilitated by Turkey and detested by the PRC that the Thai government had decided could no longer be tolerated.

And I would be inclined to think, given the vulnerability of the Thai tourist sector and the possibility that elements of the Thai security forces might be compromised, that the government might even be working toward some sort of secret accommodation with whoever’s actually behind the bombings. 

And I suspect the avalanche of leaks about this case are designed to roadtest, perfect, and promote a neat narrative that the Thai government hopes will put this ugly incident to bed.

And as for Turkey, preoccupied with its moves against the Kurds, the complex and deadly endgame in Syria, and stagemanaging/bumrushing an extremely dicy election, the AKP's youth wing busy attacking HDP and newspaper offices instead of harassing Chinese, real and perceived, for their offenses against the Uyghurs and Islam, maybe it will also be ready to close the books on its calamitous Uyghur refuge program.

Another Shoe Drops in the Turkish “Passports for Uyghurs” Case

Evidence keeps accummulating that a clandestine Turkish government program to enable Uyghur emigration from the PRC--for motives either noble, sinister, or both--has turned into a major security cock-up, embarrassment for Turkey, and a serious issue in PRC-Turkish relations.

I wrote this on July 11 on the occasion of the forcible repatriation of over one hundred Uyghur men from Thailand to the PRC amid PRC allegations that the Turkish government, in addition to providing diplomatic and consular support to the Uyghurs, had crossed a line by providing fake travel documents:

Please note that the PRC Foreign Ministry, as well as Global Times, were already raising the passport issue at the beginning of 2015.  First the PRC employed the polite fiction that some profit-minded freelancers were selling Turkish passports to Uyghurs; then it was “consulates and embassies of unnamed countries” were dishing out documents; now, unambiguously, the PRC is pointed the finger at the Turkish government.

…

The only remaining grey area is whether all the Uyghur men who end up in Syria are simply hapless “cannon fodder” recruited by jihadis, or whether the Turkish security services identify some particularly capable Uyghur militants, provide documents, and enable travel, training, and battlefield experience in Syria in order to cultivate Turkey-friendly assets in Syria or potentially in AfPak/Central Asia.  Might never get to the bottom of that one, unless the PRC decides to crank up the evidentiary apparatus another notch in order to make sure Western journos finally get the point.

The PRC is busy fleshing out this story, and added the new wrinkle that the Turkish scheme had facilitated terrorist activities within the PRC.

The PRC has embarked on a major push to justify its insistence on what the West has condemned as the refoulement of Uyghur refugees, to allege that the Uyghurs who left the country were not political refugees protected by the principle of non-refoulement; instead, they were illegal emigrants, candidate militants seeking participation in jihad.

The implications for Turkey are embarrassing, since a central allegation of the PRC’s case is that the Uyghurs it wants back from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia etc. were militants recruited and exfiltrated from the PRC by jihadi networks with the collusion of…

...Turkey…

...with the assistance of Turkish embassies and consulates in South Asia…

…and the PRC alleges that some of the refugees were not recruited just to fight against the Assad regime in Syria; they were trained and facilitated to return to the PRC to conduct terror attacks inside China.

That’s a nasty, toxic brew.

The only shoe that hasn’t dropped yet is an open PRC accusation that the passport mischief was organized by the Turkish government in Istanbul, either by its security apparatus as part of its jihadi-related scheming or with knowledge of the government leadership, and not a spontaneous initiative simultaneously kicked off by several Turkish consular offices in South Asia and miraculously complemented by Turkish border police at the airport in Istanbul.

On July 18, Xinhua offered case studies of three Uyghur “illegal immigants” repatriated back to China.  Here are some excerpts:

Memetaili, 25, was the only son in his family. When he was a freshman in a medical school in Urumqi, Xinjiang's regional capital, some people approached him in the name of imparting "religious knowledge." The "textbooks" they used were audio and video materials made by overseas terrorist groups, according to the CCTV report.

After watching the material, Memetaili felt the urge to "sacrifice" for his religious beliefs. The group then introduced him to a "fellow countryman" abroad, who asked Memetaili to join him.

...

He was soon transferred to southwest China and was not allowed to take anything indicating his Chinese nationality with him during the trip.

"I was required to dispose of my clothes that had Chinese on them, my ID card, and even socks," he said.

"They told us if we were arrested in Thailand, we should say we were from Turkey," he said, adding local police could not repatriate them because they had no identification on them.

In Malaysia, Memetaili and other migrants were taken to the Turkish embassy.

"We told the people in the embassy that we were illegal migrants and could not go back, or we would be arrested. They agreed to help us, sent a letter to the Malaysian government and issued identifying papers based on our real names," he said.

With the identification from the Turkish embassy and counterfeit passports they made themselves, they were able to buy air tickets to go to Turkey.

"If we were arrested at the airport, officials from the Turkish embassy would admit that we were their nationals, even though the passports were crudely made," he said.

In Turkey, Memetaili found that several different groups, including the World Uygur Congress and the U.N.-listed terrorist group of Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), were competing to manipulate them.

"Some of us were sent to Syria. If you wanted to join ISIS, some other people would take you there," he said.

[It’s unclear what happened to Memetaili after he became disillusioned with IS in Syria.]

…

[Another case history]

Chinese police arrested several terrorists who sneaked into China and prepared to commit terror and violence in 2015.

Ekber is one of them. He received training from the ETIM in Syria and was sent back to China to conduct terrorist attacks.

…

Ekber first came to Turkey and then Syria, where he received military training for three months. During that period, he learned how to use guns and create explosives.
…
Instigated by "Aili," Ekber went back to China in early 2015 and planned to conduct a terrorist attack in Shijiazhuang, capital city of Hebei Province, which neighbors Beijing.

Ekber was arrested before carrying out the plan.

As a sidebar, I should point out that an important objective of these articles is for the PRC to assert that returned Uyghurs not regarded as guilty of crimes against the PRC are being generously reintegrated into local society, not imprisoned and mistreated, in order to blunt refoulement-related criticism.  Not an unexpected development, at least to China Matters readers, since I wrote this on July 11:

I would expect the central government would arrange for the ostentatious pampering of these refouled Uyghurs (rather than the standard brutal treatment at the hands of the local security outfits in Xinjiang) in order to reconcile neighboring nations to the PRC’s demands.

Alright, enough patting myself on the back.

Meanwhile, the most interesting Uyghur/Turkish passport case continues to provide entertainment and enlightenment in Indonesia.

This case involves four Uyghurs whose passports, unlike Memetaili’s, were so impeccable that the Indonesian police—apparently with no useful assistance from Turkey—have been unable to refute their authenticity.

Three of the Uyghurs were recently convicted in Indonesian court on terrorism charges.

They were suspected of journeying to a remote Indonesian island to attempt to hook up with a notorious Indonesian militant whose organization has reportedly declared fealty to ISIS; and the PRC claims they are implicated in the horrific attack at the Kunming railroad station that left over 30 dead and over 100 wounded.

It is safe to say that nobody is going to try to invoke the principle of refoulement for these guys.

However, possibly to protect the rather tattered secrecy of the passport scheme, the Turkish government is still loathe to withdraw its protection.

Here is the report from BenarNews which, in contrast to pretty much every major outlet, has assiduously followed and reported this most interesting case:

A lawyer for three Uyghur men found guilty of trying to join an Indonesian terrorist group is appealing the verdict, BenarNews has learned.

The appeal was filed Wednesday after consultations with Turkish officials in Jakarta, according to defense attorney Asludin Hatjani.

“The embassy of Turkey sent staff to talk with the four defendants at Brimob Headquarters a day after the verdict. They agreed to appeal and I lodged the appeal yesterday after the talks,” Asludin told BenarNews on Thursday, referring to the police’s Mobile Brigade unit (Brimob).

“Currently we are waiting for a memorandum of appeal from the High Court.”

Turkey’s involvement corroborates that his clients are Turkish, he said.

“I can confirm they are citizens of Turkey, because their documents themselves are still recognized by the embassy and the police. Even the court itself stated their nationality is Turkish,” Asludin said.

During their trial at North Jakarta District Court, the men last month could not sing the Turkish national anthem or name its title when prosecutor Nana Riana challenged them to do so.

“How is it that a citizen doesn’t know the national anthem of his own country? I’m Indonesian. My national anthem is ‘Indonesia Raya,’” Nana said in court on June10.

The men’s citizenship could determine where they are sent once the trial is over, she later told BenarNews.

“Going forward, their citizenship status may influence the extradition agreement between Indonesian officials and the government of Turkey or China,” Nana said.

“If they are not Turkish citizens, possibly the court will destroy their passports.”

Earlier, the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) indicated that the four Uyghurs could be extradited to China after their trials.

…

The four are believed to have entered Indonesia using false Turkish passports via Malaysia. During an earlier court session they described taking a motorboat from Malaysia to Pekanbaru, Riau Province, on Sumatra island.

They flew to Jakarta, and visited Bogor and Bandung in Java before flying on to Makassar, in Sulawesi.

Shortly thereafter police arrested the four in Central Sulawesi province. Police said they were on their way to join the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT), which is believed to be based in Poso regency in Central Sulawesi.

MIT is believed to have sworn allegiance to IS, and its leader Santoso – Indonesia’s most wanted terrorist – has welcomed foreign mujahideen to join the group, security officials say.

“We have no other intention but vacation,” Basit testified in court.

To sum up the overall “Passports for Uyghurs” affair, the preponderance of evidence indicates that Uyghurs going to Turkey with Turkish consular help is definitely a thing.  The PRC allegations that some of the Uyghurs were recruited and exfiltrated with the help of militants and some Turkish accommodation is, for me, persuasive.  

The possibility that the Turkish government is systematically playing the Uyghur militant card to increase its leverage in the Middle East and Central Asia as yet unproven.  But, motives aside,  it is difficult to entertain the idea that "passports for Uyghurs" was a local brainwave of Turkish consulates and not a decision taken somewhere high up in the Turkish government.

In any case, the Indonesian affairs indicates to me that blowback from the  reckless passport program—enabling pretty unequivocal terrorist activities--has already begun.

It is interesting to look back as recently as two years ago when Western outlets routinely downplayed evidence of Uyghur violence in order to undercut the PRC’s justification for its repressive Uyghur policies in Xinjiang.  In 2013, in covering the “SUV with Uyghur banners runs over tourists and catches fire in Tiananmen” incident, AFP ran: Uyghurs pour scorn on China Tiananmen ‘terrorist’ claim.

Think that ship has sailed.  Only question is if and how West will reconcile itself to heightened Uyghur militancy against the PRC.

Global Times, in its signature pugnacious style, pushed back against foreign criticism of a bloody security operation in Shenyang on July 13 that left three alleged Uyghur terrorists dead and sixteen detained:

The West never admits they support terrorist forces in Xinjiang. But through the mouth of the ETIM organizations, they clearly expressed their bias toward the terrorists. The terrorists in Xinjiang have been counting on Western support and believe their use of terrorism is justified.

Chinese people are clear that some Western forces are pushing the terrorist activities in Xinjiang.

"Some Western forces."  Hmmm.

Wonder if, for the purposes of PRC invective on Uyghur matters, we should take “West” as “Turkey”.  Or maybe it’s both?  This story isn’t over, so I think we’ll find out sooner or later.