A Turkish court sentenced a bureaucrat Tuesday to 26 years behind bars for sexually abusing two boys in the Black Sea province of Rize.
A Deputy Secretary General of Provincial Special Administration and Red Crescent Branch Chairperson, Mehmet Nuri Gezmiş, 56, was also an administrator of government-linked Ensar Foundation, which hit the headlines for sexually abusing 45 boys.
After complaint of two boys' family about Gezmiş, his mobile phones and computers were investigated by the police. Images of and correspondence with children were detected. On Tuesday, the case about Gezmiş is concluded and he was handed a 26-year jail sentence.
SEXUALLY ABUSING IN GUESTHOUSES ISLAMIC FOUNDATION
Muharrem Büyüktürk, 54, was charged with sexually abusing 10 children in homes run by the goverment-linked Ensar Foundation in the conservative southern Anatolian town of Karaman in 2012-2015. 10 children out of 45 who were victims of Ensar Foundation sexual abuse case had medical report for 'rape'. Reports are included in the case file.
He was given 508 years for molesting children aged between 12 and 14, and encouraging them to watch obscene images, with victims testifying that they had been made to watch pornography involving animals. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Islamist-rooted AKP have come under fire for trying to protect the foundations. Büyüktürk was rapidly put on trial and sentenced to hundreds of years of prison.
Ensar Foundation is a religiously-oriented foundation, supported by AKP government. The foundation gives religious courses and support of children from low-income families; however, these children are open to all kinds of abuse; since these foundations are not controlled. Such foundations serve as illegal guesthouses for minors.
CHILD ABUSE CLAIMS RELATED TO ENSAR
However, the relation between child abuse crimes and Ensar Foundation was not limited to this.
At the end of 2015, it was reported that FBI gave Turkey some intelligence that Vice Rector of Trakya University and Professor of Islamology downloaded child porn. House and computers of Hüseyin Sarıoğlu were investigated by the police; however, all the information about ongoing investigation process was hidden, required by the court. Pro-government media corporatinos claimed that Sarıoğlu was a victim of conspiracy, without providing any evidence. News about Sarıoğlu were unlawfully censored by the government despite a court decision. The investigation continues, yet Sarıoğlu went unpunished.
Ensar Foundation connected Sarıoğlu had his three books on Islam published by a publisher owned by the foundation.
