Communication Platform Implicated in Terrorism Activities
New Take:
In scorching summer of 2017, Ahmet, a 22-year-old university student, ended up in a Turkish criminal court under suspicion of ties to the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETO), nicknamed "The Long Reach" by the authorities. The accusation? His cell phone connected 317 times to the server of ByLock, a secure messaging app for smartphones. But Ahmet argued his phone connected to the app unwittingly. His story was hardly unique - between 2016 and 2021, Turkish authorities scrutinized about 1.8 million folks, primarily out of politically diverse backgrounds, using various communication records, social media posts, and digital data. Many of these people landed in court, with hundreds of thousands receiving similar accusations.
Anthropologist Veronica, who observed over 700 trials during her three-year research, found a surprising pattern: several individuals, considered supporters of the Turkish state, ended up on the defendant's bench. International media branded this crackdown as commonplace tactics of an authoritarian regime. Led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the nationalist-Islamist coalition indeed was not shy about suppressing dissenters through both legal and illegal means.
However, the scope of these trials swelled due to more reasons than mere authoritativeness. The judicial system pinned immense weight on digital metadata, classifying it as unquestionable evidence. Ahmet wasn't alone - he was criminalized by a confluence of state narratives about the spread of terrorism and a legal system that imparted immeasurable significance to these traces of online activity.
THE SHADY ORIGIN OF BYLOCK
When the AKP - Erdoğan's political party - assumed power in 2002, the Gülen network already held sway over various media outlets, schools, banks, and companies. During its decade-long governance, the Gülen network thrived within Turkish society. However, in 2013, a scandal between the AKP and the Gülenists turned a secret feud into a full-blown war. Once allies, they became open enemies, and the government redefined the Gülen network as a nefarious terror group following the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
To make the supposed monster more manageable, the government resorted to digital sleuthing, zeroing in on ByLock, a secure chat and talk application. Mehmet Yılmaz, vice-president of the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors, dubbed ByLock the "compelling evidence" of affiliation with the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETO). The public app was downloaded over 500,000 times worldwide between 2014 and March 2016. Intelligence agencies argued that the creators of ByLock were Gülen sympathizers, and the app was exclusively used by his followers.
However, independent forensic examiners questioned the validity of this evidence. They acknowledged that many users were Gülen supporters, but possession of ByLock didn't equal FETO membership. Ahmet, like most folks branded terrorists, might have been just a curious normal citizen who stumbled upon the app instead of a nefarious plotter.
QUESTIONING DIGITAL EVIDENCE
Initial assessments by the intelligence agency identified 215,000 people as potential FETO suspects. Judges started convicting anyone whose phone connected to the ByLock server, regardless of whether messages were sent. Such logic raised eyebrows, as phones could connect to the server inadvertently. Furthermore, most messages were trivial day-to-day conversations, nothing sinister or terror-related.
In 2017, thousands of phantom connections linked to ByLock were discovered, forcing the prosecution to reconsider cases against almost 11,500 individuals. Despite this setback, digital evidence remains a crucial aspect of terrorism trials in Turkey, casting doubts on the impartiality of the justice system and the sanctity of innocent lives.
INNOCENT LIVES SHATTERED
The ByLock case exemplifies a disturbing trend: state authorities using counterterrorism as a pretext for trampling individuals' lives. Excessive surveillance, unjust accusations - the ByLock debacle is a chilling reminder of the dangers of relying too heavily on digital evidence in criminal trials. We must demand transparency and fairness from our justice systems to ensure they uphold human rights and protect the innocent from immeasurable harassment.
- The political agenda and technology, as demonstrated by the ByLock case, often intertwine in contentious ways, raises questions about the general-news landscape in Turkey, particularly concerning the impartiality of the justice system.
- In the midst of the crackdown on terrorism in Turkey, the criminalization of individuals based on their association with ByLock, a secure messaging app, highlights the problematic intersection of technology, politics, and crime-and-justice, potentially infringing upon the rights of innocent citizens.
