Ergün Poyraz (born 31 January 1963idefix.com
Ergün Poyraz
/ref>) is a prolific Turkish author known for his controversial books about the ruling

Justice and Development Party Justice and Development Party may refer to several political parties, the best-known ones being: * Justice and Development Party (Morocco) * Justice and Development Party (Turkey) Justice and Development Party may also refer to: * Justice and Dev ...

, the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, and people associated with them. He is best known for his 2007 book The Children of Moses ( tr, Musa'nın Çocukları), which accused Prime Minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...

and his wife of being secret Jews and of cooperating with Israeli intelligence to undermine Turkish secularism. He was arrested in 2007 and was a defendant in the

Ergenekon trials The Ergenekon trials were a series of high-profile trials which took place on 2008–2016 in Turkey in which 275 people, including military officers, journalists and opposition lawmakers, all alleged members of Ergenekon, a suspected secularist ...

; on 5 August 2013, he was sentenced to 29 years in prison.

Life

Poyraz graduated from the

Yıldız Technical University Yıldız Technical University ( Tr. ''Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi'', often simply referred to as YTU or Yıldız) is a prominent technical university dedicated to engineering and natural sciences as well as social sciences recently, and is one ...

. He was described as an extremely secular Turkish ultranationalist. According to ''

Milliyet ''Milliyet'' ( Turkish for "''nationality''") is a Turkish daily newspaper published in Istanbul, Turkey. History and profile ''Milliyet'' came to publishing life at the Nuri Akça press in Babıali, Istanbul as a daily private newspaper on 3 ...

'', Poyraz contributed to the 1998 closure of the Welfare Party (RP) "by presenting to the Constitutional Court ecretfootage of RP leader Necmettin Erbakan's speeches." Poyraz's 2007 book The Children of Moses accused Prime Minister

and his wife of being secret Jews and cooperating with Israeli intelligence to undermine Turkish secularism. His another book ''The Rose of Moses'' contains similar allegations about President Abdullah Gül. It was the second best-selling book in Turkey in 2007. He later released a book titled ''From the Army of the Caliphate to the Arab Kurdish Party'', with "Arab Kurdish Party" referring to the AKP. At the time of his 2007 arrest Poyraz appears to have been working on a book about Deniz Baykal. In 2013, Poyraz lost a libel case brought on behalf of the preacher Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the controversial Islamic Gülen movement, over his book ''Amerika'daki İmam'' ("The Imam in America").

Ergenekon

He was arrested in 2007 and charged with membership of the '' Association for the Union of Patriotic Forces'' (VKGB), which is said to be linked to the Ergenekon organization.

Hürriyet Daily News The ''Hürriyet Daily News'', formerly ''Hürriyet Daily News and Economic Review'' and ''Turkish Daily News'', is the oldest current English-language daily in Turkey, founded in 1961. The paper was bought by the Doğan Media Group in 2001 and ...

, 1 August 2007
Anti-government author charged over ultra-nationalist links
/ref> According to ''

Taraf ''Taraf'' ("Side" in Turkish) was a liberal newspaper in Turkey. It had distinguished itself by opposing interference by the Turkish military in the country's social and political affairs. It was distributed nationwide, and had been in circulati ...

'', Poyraz was paid by the JITEM military intelligence unit; General Levent Ersöz has also spoken of payments to Poyraz. According to media reports, the Turkish Gendarmerie bought thousands of copies of Poyraz' books. In August 2013, he was sentenced to 29 years and 4 months in prison. He was released on March 11, 2014 after his sentence time was reduced. In April 2022 he was severely beaten in front of his house in Kuşadası district of

Aydın Aydın ( ''EYE-din''; ; formerly named ''Güzelhisar'', Ancient and Modern Greek: Τράλλεις /''Tralleis''/) is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of B ...

and hospitalised.

Some of his books

* ''Fethullah’ın Gerçek Yüzü / Said-i Nursi’den Demirel ve Ecevit’e'' ("The Real Face of Fethullah: From Said-i Nursi to Demirel and Ecevit"), Otopsi, İstanbul, 2000. * ''Misyonerler Arasında Altı Ay'' ("Six Months Among Missionaries"), 2004 * ''Kanla Abdest Alanlar'' ("Those Who Perform their Ablutions with Blood"), Togan Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 2007. * ''Musa'nın Çocukları: Tayyip ve Emine'' ("Children of Moses: Tayyip and Emine"), Togan Yayıncılık, 2007 * ''Musa'nın Gül'ü'' ("The Rose of Moses"), Togan Yayıncılık, 2007 * ''Patlak Ampul'' ("Broken Lamp"), Togan Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 2007. * ''Amerika'daki İmam'' ("The Imam in America"), 2009, about Fethullah Gülen * ', Togan Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 2010, critical of

* ''Tarikat, Siyaset, Ticaret ve Cinayet: Masonlarla El Ele'', Togan Yayıncılık, 2011 * ''İplikçi: Kirli İlişkiler Yumağı'', Tanyeri Kitap, 2013

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poyraz, Ergun 1963 births Living people Turkish non-fiction writers Turkish conspiracy theorists Kemalists Antisemitism in Turkey Critics of Christianity Critics of Judaism Critics of Islamism Anti-Christian sentiment in Turkey Critics of Freemasonry Yıldız Technical University alumni Prisoners and detainees of Turkey People convicted in the Ergenekon trials Turkish nationalists Anti-Americanism Anti-Masonry