The Turkish state is systematically trying to recruit informers through bribery, threats, violence and blackmail. In the last eight years, after the end of the negotiation process by the AKP-MHP regime, there have been many such recruitment attempts. According to the Human Association (IHD), in the years 2015-2021 alone, 952 people, mostly Kurds, were subjected to attempts by the authorities to make them work as informers. If you follow the press reports, countless other cases will be added for the years 2022 and 2023. However, both the successful recruitment attempts and the majority of the failed ones are never reported because the authorities use intimidation and death threats.

Violence and threats

The police use a wide variety of methods to recruit informers and mainly target young men and women. Those affected spoke about money offers, the exploitation of poverty and unemployment through offers of housing and jobs, and the promise of an income as the most common methods. Perfidious and cruel actions are  taken against women and girls. They are first sexually harassed, pictures of the attack are taken and then they are threatened with publication of these pictures. Another method is to take advantage of family problems and threaten that something will happen to others in the family. At the same time, those affected are repeatedly threatened with criminalization and long prison sentences. Students are promised work after graduation and a regular income.

The victims

Some of the victims reported by the IHD report are as follows:

Ten young people from the Federation of Democratic Youth Associations (DEM-GENÇ) were detained after a fight that broke out when ISIS sympathizer Muslim Youth (MÜS-GENÇ) members attacked patriotic and revolutionary students on 15 December 2015 at Istanbul University. The students, who were released by the court on a "judicial control condition" after their statements were taken, told about their experiences in detention.

Istanbul University Faculty of Law student Ferhat Kavak noted that the police tried to force them into becoming informers.

Recruitment attempts also in prison

Onur Qatar was detained on 2 April 2015 on charges of "being a member of the MLKP". He was in Tekirdağ F-Type No. 2 Prison at the time when he was taken from his cell and told he had a visit with a lawyer. He was met by plainclothes police officers and offered to become an informer.

Abducted and threatened

Sezgin Cengiz (38), who was arrested during a solidarity demonstration for Kobanê in Van and was released after two months in prison, reports that he was abducted by the MIT secret service. On 13 January 2015, the commander of the Delice military base summoned the young man, who was working as a driver, telling him about some documents that had gone missing. At a gas station in central Erciş (Erdîş), where the meeting was to take place, four people forced Cengiz into a vehicle with tinted windows and drove him ten kilometers out of town. The four people who introduced themselves as MIT agents tried to recruit him as an agent. The people, wearing dark sunglasses, threatened him using information about family members.

Arrest and constant calls

On 5 March 2015, O.S. went to IHD in Istanbul and said: “I was arrested on 12 February while distributing leaflets promoting the 13 February boycott. At the Güzeltepe police station, people posing as secret service agents asked me various questions. During the arrest, I was beaten, threatened and asked to be an informer. They took my phone number and kept calling me and saying they wanted to meet me. They keep calling me even though I declined.”

Threats to family members

I.Y. (16) was arrested on 13 February 2015 in Van. The police from the juvenile division tried to coerce I.Y. into becoming an informer. I.Y. contacted the IHD on 24 March 2015 and reported that her family was being threatened and that she had agreed to work as an informer out of fear.