PM Erdoğan: Internet bill protesters are defenders of immorality


Date posted: February 10, 2014

İSTANBUL

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has lambasted demonstrators against a draconian bill aiming to censor Internet content as defenders of immorality, referring to an article in a pro-government daily on Sunday that said the opposition against the bill is administered by a “porn lobby.”

“I am very sorry, please forgive me, but they are taking to the streets and immorally saying, ‘Don’t touch these indecent visuals’ and the parallel structure is backing them,” Erdoğan yelled during a public rally on Sunday celebrating the groundbreaking of a metro line between Mecidiyeköy and Mahmutbey, two districts in İstanbul.

Erdoğan defended the bill, which gives the state greater authority in controlling Internet content, saying the government isn’t introducing restrictions to the Internet, but is actually moving to expand the sphere of freedom. “We are only introducing regulations against publications that violate personal rights,” he said.

He recalled a video tape displaying Deniz Baykal, former chairperson of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), with a woman, saying that he had moved swiftly to prevent dissemination of the visuals without waiting for a court order. Erdoğan, however, used discursive strategies in discussing the content of the video during his election campaigns in 2011, accusing Baykal of immorality and adultery. Erdoğan said the videotape was released by a “parallel state,” a term he uses to describe state officials close to the Hizmet movement, a faith-based voluntary organization spreading religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue in the world. In his resignation speech, however, Baykal denied that Hizmet had anything to do with the videotape.

Erdoğan said the parallel structure within the state has taken steps against “our entrepreneurs and businessmen,” referring to a government graft probe that became public on Dec. 17 of last year and implicated a number of contractors who had undertaken colossal government construction projects, as well as the sons of three ministers. Media outlets ran stories based on leaked voice recordings and the documents of a second probe, which has been stalled since Dec. 25, 2014, when the government started removing or reassigning thousands of police officers and police chiefs as well as the prosecutors carrying out the investigation. The press has since reported that the depths of corruption within the government is actually a lot bigger than initially assumed.

He accused this parallel structure of being in an alliance with opposition parties, the powerful Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD) and the critical media in a plot against his government. Erdoğan claims that this coalition is an extension of the same organization that toppled the government in 1960 and executed former Prime Minister Adnan Menderes by hanging. He said those who are critical of his government, including the opposition, which is desperate to coming to power through the ballot boxes, are exactly the same people who instigated the Gezi protests last summer to weaken his government.

“We have been productive and they are slinging stones at us. They are only cursing us. We are trying to make Turkey more powerful and they are trying to pull it down,” Erdoğan quipped. Erdoğan further claimed that the Dec. 17 investigations also targeted the economy, saying that the perpetrators of (as he calls it) a coup against his power aim to sink the public bank Halkbank and the National Intelligence Agency (MİT).

Erdoğan refutes Zarrab claims

As part of the Dec. 17 investigation, prosecutors claim that Reza Zarrab, an Iranian businessmen, allegedly used Halkbank as a transfer point for gold to Iran in return for oil, as a way to circumvent international sanctions. Zarrab, currently under arrest, has also been accused of bribing government officials to get his scheme operating.

Erdoğan refuted these claims in his speech during the metro groundbreaking ceremony and provided those present with a definition of the word bribe. He said a bribe can only occur between a civil servant and a civilian person and, without elaborating on the definition any further, added that his government has been an opponent of corruption since his party came to power 11 years ago. He proved his claim by mentioning the economic achievements of the government.

Erdoğan, who had labeled TÜSİAD as traitor a couple of weeks ago when it warned the government that foreign investors are wary of political tensions, continued criticizing the business organization. He said TÜSİAD should mind it own business and hinted that they may face rigorous audits otherwise.

Source: Todays Zaman , February 10, 2014


Related News

A Letter To The Free World | Hidayet Karaca

Hidayet Karaca, an executive with a leading Turkish TV network, has been in prison since 14 December last year on charges of leading a terrorist group.

Malaysia deports 3 Turks despite warnings of torture risk

Three Turkish nationals who were recently detained over controversial charges in Malaysia have been deported to Turkey. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Office for South-East Asia earlier called on Malaysian officials to refrain from extradition as the detainees are affiliated with the Gülen movement.

Claims about TİB plot to libel Hizmet spark massive reaction

Jurists and politicians reacted harshly to a claim in an email by an anonymous whistleblower from the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB), the agency responsible for carrying out legal wiretaps, that there is a conspiracy to bring the Hizmet movement under suspicion of infiltrating TİB.

Turkey’s Hizmet Purge Is Seeping into the UK Creating Fear in Some Communities

Over the weekend, we have received 5 reports from individuals who are involved in the delivery of social services here in the UK and who are of Turkish heritage. The text messages ask for individuals to inform on members of the Hizmet movement. The impact of these messages is to create fear within members of the Hizmet movement in the UK and who are active in social work within and beyond Muslim communities.

Humanity prepares its own end, says Assyrian Catholic Church leader Sag

“Dialogue is not an option,” Yesil said, “it is an obligatory way through which we all have to go.” “We both need and have to understand and know each other, love each other and live together.”

Yet another conspiracy against the Gülen movement?

My source informed me that some clandestine figures from the deep state have been working on a project to portray the Gülen movement as having connections with international drug traffickers and international smugglers.

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Turks living in Britain see it as their duty to integrate

Bride, groom detained in bridal car while on way to wedding venue

Building bridges while breaking bread: Norfolk temple holds interfaith Ramadan meal

Turkish intelligence staged a rocket attack on Erdoğan’s palace to rally public support

Foreign Minister Babacan visits Turkish school in Dakar

Turkish school threatens students who refuse to write poems on coup attempt

Fethullah Gülen’s message to Turquiose Harmony Institute “Peace and Dialogue Awards”

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News