After announcing that they had uncovered covert listening devices in their offices at the end of last year, a Turkish opposition party alleged they had been victims of a state sponsored operation to spy on the governments rivals.
The People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey have said that they’ve discovered hidden listening devices in plug sockets and lamps in as many as 40 Istanbul district offices. The co-chair of HDP’s Istanbul division, Elif Bulut, said that they had discovered so many that it was hard to keep track of them in an interview with the telegraph.
A recent incident where the details of a press briefing that was yet to be made public were known by Turkish police, raised HDP official’s suspicions and prompted a search of their Istanbul offices. In a press conference, HDP presented the listening devices that they had discovered and said that it was the “clearest proof” so far that the Turkish government was spying on opposition parties. The Turkish government has denied the allegations.
In her interview with the telegraph, Bulut said “It’s so normal for us [discovering hidden listening devices] that we don’t even inform our colleagues when we find them. I don’t think there is an office without a listening device,” she went onto explain that “We were thinking that they were listening to us from outside the building. Then, during a press conference, we wanted to use a triple plug socket,” she said. “We realized it was broken, and one of our friends opened it up. We saw the latest device. They put this one inside the triple plug, but the others were mostly in wall plugs and lamps.”