Detained Turkish educator’s wife asks for state protection
By Tea Mariamidze
Tuesday, July 4
Tuba Cabuk, wife of the detained Demirel College manager Mustafa Emre Cabuk, is asking for a protection from the state. She also asks for political asylum in Georgia and refugee status for her husband and family.
Mustafa Cabuk was sentenced to three-month pre-extradition detention over alleged links to a terrorist organization in May.
Tuba Cabuk claims that pressure and threats are being exerted on her family through social networks.
“I am receiving threats via social networks, especially from Turkey. There are addresses towards certain Turkish groups asking them to find and kill us. I am frightened and I asked my lawyer to request the state for our protection,” she said.
The lawyer of Cabuk, Soso Baratashvili, said that he has already applied to the State Special Security Service asking them to protect the family members of Demirel College's former manager.
He also presented all necessary documentation to the Ministry of Refugees with the request to grant refugee’s status to Cabuk and his family members.
Baratashvili says that if the ministry satisfies his request and will grant the status of refugees to Cabuk and his family, the extradition process will be suspended.
Irakli Lomidze, head of the Asylum Seekers Department of the Ministry of Refugees, says the case of Cabuk is under consideration and the final decision will be made on July 7.
“We do not have a preliminary answer. The documentation will be studied and the final decision will be made only after this,” Lomidze stated.
Mustafa Emre Cabuk has been living in Georgia since 2002. From 2016 he has served as the Quality Management Manager of Demirel Private College.
Cabuk was detained on May 24 after the official visit of Turkish Prime Minister and Cabinet members to Georgia.
He is accused of having links with the FETO organization, which is registered in the United States and associated with Fethullah Gulen; the latter is accused of orchestrating a military coup attempt in Turkey on 15 July 2016, and FETO is considered a terrorist organization in Turkey.
