Erdogan tightens his repressive grip on users of ByLock app

Nora Bandari

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is constantly worried about holding on to the seat of government, which pushes him to tighten his security grip on his opponents and anything that threatens his regime, as he seeks to achieve his plan to control a number of Arab countries. This pushed the Turkish president to tighten censorship on social media and all online platforms that he sees as a threat to his power, especially following the failed coup in July 2016.

Continuous arrests

The Turkish president went on to arrest users of the ByLock instant messaging application, claiming that the users of this app are linked to the Turkish opposition group Hizmet, led by Fethullah Gulen.

The last arrests were on February 12, 2021, when the Istanbul Attorney General’s office issued orders to arrest 23 citizens for using the ByLock application and joining Gulen’s Hizmet movement, which Turkey classifies as a terrorist organization and as being behind the failed coup.

According to Turkish media, the Terrorist Crimes Office of the Prosecutor General’s Office in Istanbul announced that it was investigating suspects who were found to be using ByLock. After the completion of investigations, 23 people were identified working in different professions who use the application. They include two police chiefs, one deputy commissioner, a teacher, a health worker, a doctor, a public sector Quran teacher, a lawyer and a doctor working in the private sector.

In mid-January 2021, the Turkish authorities arrested 44 judges and public prosecutors on charges of using the ByLock application and belonging to the Hizmet movement, although most of the suspects were in high judicial positions, but the Turkish public prosecutor charged them with using the app and leaking exam questions in 2011, according to the Turkish opposition newspaper Zaman.

ByLock application

The Turkish authorities claim that ByLock users are behind the failed coup attempt in Ankara in July 2016. ByLock is a secure application for texting and phone calls, created by an American programmer of Turkish origin named David Keynes, who previously said in press statements that he had learned in schools affiliated with the Gulen network before moving to Washington to complete his university studies. Although the app consistently denies its affiliation with the Gulen group, the Turkish regime insists that it includes members of the group.

As a result of the campaign of arrests launched by the Erdogan regime against users, ByLock has become known as “the app that leads to prison in Turkey.” Indeed, a number of political analysts believe that the presence of this application on the phone of any Turkish citizen puts him in great trouble with the security authorities, who believe this constitutes sufficient evidence that the phone’s owner belongs to the Gulen group and participated in the implementation of the 2016 coup.