UK MP ‘paid by Gülen for anti-Turkey report’

LONDON - Anadolu Agency

A British MP was allegedly paid tens of thousands pounds to write a report on the human rights situation in Turkey together with a group linked to the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, a leading British daily reported on Aug. 1.

The Turkish government sees Gülen and his followers behind the July 15 coup attempt. According to The Times article, Sir Edward Garnier, a Conservative MP for Harborough, was paid 115,994 pounds ($152,951) in February 2015 “to co- research and author a document titled ‘A Report on the Rule of Law and Respect for Human Rights in Turkey’.”

The report, which was commissioned by The Journalists and Writers Foundation, “focused exclusively on actions by the Turkish government against Gülen-linked organizations,” the paper said.

It was written at a time when Gülen’s Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) had been listed as a terrorist organization in Turkey.

The Journalists and Writers Foundation is said to be linked to Gülen.

“Sir Edward insists that he and the other authors of the report are not supporters or adherents o Hizmet [the Gülen movement] but wrote the report as independent English lawyers based on the evidence we had reviewed,” the paper said.

Garnier, during a Commons debate in March, had also urged the reversal of the U.K.’s support for Turkey’s accession to the EU by raising “the serial and appalling human rights and rule of law abuses by the Turkish government.