Software to identify Gülenists within the military

Nuray Babacan - ANKARA

A software program to facilitate the profiling of members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) has been developed as part of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) bid to discharge alleged Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) members from the military. 

The software is reportedly built upon a scoring system that gives negative points to army members who have conducted additional foreign missions, have received disciplinary notes, have benefited from suspiciously rapid promotions, or have previously been appointed to duties concerning student admissions and student grading. 

“Privileged positions and conspicuous exam grades” are reportedly marked as negative score in the software. 

With background searches for all military staff ongoing, the move aims to identify lower-ranking soldiers linked to FETÖ, following the recent Supreme Military Council (YAŞ) meeting.

In the new software program, names are given scores and their personal backgrounds are assigned color codes of yellow, green and red. Green is positive, yellow in inconclusive, and red is negative.

According to the labels, names that are categorized under yellow or red labels will undergo further investigations. 

Deep investigations into alleged FETÖ members within the military had started in 2016, with the cross-checking of army members.