Ali Ünal: what Wikipedia removed
Ali Ünal is a Turkish journalist whose newspaper, Zaman, was shut down after the failed 2016 coup. The 2020 opening stated he was accused of establishing and managing an armed terrorist organization and membership in a terrorist organization. Today’s opening drops the charges entirely, describing him only as a former Zaman chief writer, though terror survives 5 times elsewhere in the article. A reader today does not learn that Ünal was formally charged with terrorist organization membership.
The word “terror” appeared 3 times in this article’s opening at its peak, in 2020. Today the opening carries none; the body carries 5. Checked against the full current article on 2026-08-01.
The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot
Section titled “The tracked words, snapshot by snapshot”| word | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 6 October 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| terror | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Counts are of the opening paragraph only, the part most readers, search engines and AI training sets ever quote.
What was taken out
Section titled “What was taken out”- The opening biographical sentence identifying his birth date and profession, reworded.
- The description of the charges against him, including membership in a terrorist organization, dropped from the opening.
How it opened then, and now
Section titled “How it opened then, and now”2010 (revision 361069826):
Ali Ünal is a Turkish author closely associated with the Gülen Movement , a modernist Islamic group in Turkey . In addition to being an author, Ali Ünal is a prolific translator of works with an Islamic theme into English, and has translated into English many works by Fethullah Gülen , the spiritual leader and founder of the Gülen Movement. In 2006, Ali Ünal’s English translation of the Quran was released. Entitled The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English , the work also included extensive annotations by the translator. Ali Ünal’s published books as author and editor include Islam Addresses Contemporary Issues , Islamic Perspectives on Science: Knowledge and Responsibility …
2025 (revision 1288449133):
Turkish author and journalist (born 1955) Ali Ünal (born 19 January 1955) is a Turkish author and former chief writer at Zaman newspaper, which was shut down following the failed 2016 Turkish Coup D’état .
Related
Section titled “Related”- The drift report: what changed across all 61,944 watched articles
- The case file for this article, with every snapshot and every marked removal
- Who made the cuts: removals grouped by the account that made them
- The live article on Wikipedia
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