The Grey Wolves, officially known as Ülkü Ocakları, are a Turkish far-right ultranationalist organization. They are commonly described as ultranationalist and/or neo-fascist. A youth organization with close links to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), it has been described as MHP's paramilitary or militant wing. Its members deny its political nature and claim it to be a cultural and education foundation, as per its full official name: Ülkü Ocakları Eğitim ve Kültür Vakfı.
Alparslan Türkeş was a Turkish politician, who was the founder and president of the Nationalist Movement Party. He represented the far-right of the Turkish political spectrum. He was and still is called Başbuğ ("Leader") by his devotees. Although his ideology was on the far-right, he is respected by both sides of the Turkish political spectrum.
The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front is a Turkish Marxist–Leninist party. It was founded in 1978 as Revolutionary Left, and was renamed in 1994 after factional infighting. Due to their violent activities, they are classified as a terrorist group by Japan, Turkey, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The Great Unity Party or Great Union Party is a far-right Islamist and nationalist political party in Turkey, created on 29 January 1993. It is considered to be close to the Grey Wolves organization, and is related to the "Alperen Ocakları" tendency, which operated a synthesis between cultural nationalism and Islamism, and separated itself from the Nationalist Task Party (MÇP), which was renamed to Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in July 1992.
Abdullah Çatlı was a convicted Turkish secret government agent, and contract killer for the Secret Turkish Service (MİT). He led the Grey Wolves, the youth branch of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) during the 1970s. His death in the Susurluk car crash, while travelling in a car with state officials revealed the depth of the state's complicity in organized crime, in what became known as the Susurluk scandal. He was a hitman for the state, ordered to kill suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia.
Radikal ("Radical") was a daily liberal Turkish language newspaper, published in Istanbul. It has been published since 1996 by Aydın Doğan's Doğan Media Group. Despite only having a circulation of around 25,000, it was considered one of the most influential Turkish newspapers.
Devlet Bahçeli is a Turkish politician who has been the chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) since 6 July 1997.
The Susurluk scandal was a scandal involving the close relationship between the Turkish government, the armed forces, and organized crime. It took place during the peak of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, in the mid-1990s. The relationship came into existence after the National Security Council (MGK) posited the need for the marshaling of the nation's resources to combat the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Alaattin Çakıcı is a former member of the ultra-nationalist organization Grey Wolves and one of the leading mobs of the Turkish underworld.
Meral Akşener is a Turkish politician. She served as Minister of the Interior and was a vice-speaker of the Parliament. In 2016, she led a group of opposition within the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) against its leader Devlet Bahçeli. On 25 October 2017, she founded the İyi Party, of which she is the leader.
Hüseyin Çapkın, is a Turkish civil servant. He was lately the police chief of Istanbul Province.
Hanefi Avcı is a former chief of police in Turkey, and author of the best-selling book Haliç’te Yaşayan Simonlar, in which Avcı claimed that the Gülen movement had infiltrated the police and manipulated key trials such as the Ergenekon trials through judges and prosecutors close to the movement. Avcı, a conservative Islamist, was himself once close to the movement, and his children were educated in a Gülen school. Avcı, who in the 1990s testified to parliament in relation to the Susurluk scandal and in 2009 to prosecutors about the mafia links of the Ergenekon organization, was the first Turkish state official to confirm the existence of the Turkish Gendarmerie's JITEM intelligence unit.
Ünal Erkan is a Nationalist Movement Party politician. He was at one time a member of the party's Central Executive Board, resigning in 2007. He was governor of the OHAL state-of-emergency region from 1992 to 1995, and had previously been head of police in Ankara and Istanbul and Chief of the General Directorate of Security. He was briefly a cabinet minister in 1996 under Mesut Yılmaz for the True Path Party (DYP).
Limak Holding A.S. is a Turkish conglomerate, with major interests in construction, energy, cement, and tourism. Its assets include the Limak Cement and Limak Energy companies and the Limak Tourism Group. In 2012 it had around $260m revenue from construction.
Mustafa Murat Sökmenoğlu was a Turkish politician who was a parliamentary deputy from 1983 to 1989 and from 1999 to 2002.
The 2013 corruption scandal in Turkey refers to a criminal investigation that involves several key people in the Turkish government. All of the 52 people detained on 17 December were connected in various ways with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Prosecutors accused 14 people – including Suleyman Aslan, the director of state-owned Halkbank, Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, and several family members of cabinet ministers – of bribery, corruption, fraud, money laundering and gold smuggling.
The DHKP/C insurgency in Turkey refers to the Marxist-Leninist insurgency waged by the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), ongoing since 1990. The insurgency began with political assassinations in the early 1990s, and escalated in the past years, with DHKP/C resolving to suicide bombing strategy to terrorize the Turkish authorities and civilians.
On 10 October 2015 at 10:04 local time (EEST) in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, two bombs were detonated outside Ankara Central railway station. With a death toll of 109 civilians, the attack surpassed the 2013 Reyhanlı bombings as the deadliest terror attack in modern Turkish history. Another 500 people were injured. Censorship monitoring group Turkey Blocks identified nationwide slowing of social media services in the aftermath of the blasts, described by rights group Human Rights Watch as an "extrajudicial" measure to restrict independent media coverage of the incident.
The March for Justice was a 450 km (280-mile) march from Ankara to Istanbul to protest against arrests that were made as part of the government crackdown following the July 2016 coup d'état attempt. After the coup attempt, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government declared a state of emergency. Since then at least 50,000 people have been arrested and another 140,000 people have been removed from their positions. The protest was led by opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in response to a lengthy prison sentence that Enis Berberoğlu received for allegedly giving the press a video that shows Turkish intelligence smuggling weapons into Syria. The march concluded in Istanbul on 9 July with a rally attended by hundreds of thousands of people, during which Kılıçdaroğlu spoke at length about the effect that the government purge has had on the judiciary and rule of law in Turkey.
