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The head of a pro-government association in Kocaeli, northwestern Turkey, threatened local journalist Merve Dişli, who works for the Kocaeli Barış newspaper.
The Ak Youth (Ak Gençlik Ocakları) was founded within the youth branch of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Barış Çiftçi, head of the group, has a Mercedes with a presidential seal.
The newspaper published a report by Dişli entitled "They founded a group despite the AKP youth, and the youth is not aware of that!"
After the report, Çiftçi threatened the journalist in a phone call, telling her "You'll pay for it" and "Know your place."
"I'm not safe," Dişli told bianet. "Just because of reporting on the opening of the Kocaeli provincial chairpersonship of an association that came to the parliamentary agenda, I've been insulted."
The İzmit branch
"When I was on a bus, I realized that it opened [a branch] in İzmir when I coincidentally saw the sign of the Ak Youth. I got off the bus and took a photo of it," said Dişli.
"After I returned to the office, I started researching. I reached provincial chairperson Tevfik Oğuz on social media. I got information about when they were organized.
"Soon after, they called me from the Ak Youth headquarters. They were more like blaming provincial chair Tevfik Oğuz for not working before and not speaking to the press. I think the fact that I got a statement from provincial chair Tevfik Oğuz while no statement from chairperson Barış Çiftçi was published was considered negative for Oğuz. Tevfik Oğuz asked us to remove the article but we didn't. I told him that if he made a statement, I could publish it.
"Then Ak Youth's chairperson Barış Çiftçi called me from my personal number. He asked who sent the report to me and who instructed me to make the report. I said I hadn't received instructions from anyone and that he cannot talk to me like that. He said he would put me in my place and come to Koaceli to confront me. He was going to see if I could say the same things to his face.
"I said he couldn't talk to me like that and hung up. Then Barış Çiftçi shared the photos I had shared on his own account and marked me as a target.
"Sharing my photo with Ali Babacan, he wrote that I had ties to FETÖ and served the Table of Six. In no way does he believe I made the report. He continues to blame me."
Dişli also noted that AKP Youth Branch Chair Eyyüp Kadir İnan had called Çiftçi "clever-clever" and said, "This person has no organic or inorganic ties to our party's youth organs."
Mercedes with a presidential seal
In 2014, Hakan Yiğit founded the Ak Ocaklar Association. Barış Çiftçi was the chair of the association's Mersin branch. With this title, he visited some public authorities, including the Mersin Provincial Security directorate and the Toroslar District Governor's Office.
In October 2021, Çiftçi released a video, saying that he founded a new association named Ak Gençlik Ocakları. He also said "Ankara, the chairpersonship and the Presidency" found this duty appropriate for him.
According to the association's website, it has 6,000 members and branches in several cities such as İstanbul, Şırnak and Diyarbakır.
Çiftçi first became a talking point last year, when he was seen in Mersin in a Mercedes car with a presidential seal.
Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Murat Bakan had said at the time that it "looked like a paramilitary organization" and asked Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu to explain the situation.
In February, a vehicle belonging to the Ak Youth was seen with a card that read "Ministry of Interior Ak Youth Mersin Provincial Chairpersonship."
After that, CHP Mersin MP Cengiz Gökçel submitted a parliamentary question to Minister Soylu, asking who used the car and who owned it.
The minister has neither responded to the MPs nor made a statement about the association. (HA/VK)
