The headline of this column belongs to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He said it during his party’s parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday.
The prime minister, who has directed harsh insults at the Hizmet movement and Fethullah Gülen in all the speeches he has made since the corruption investigation went public, continued to do so on Tuesday, too. He had previously called the Hizmet movement a “dirty organization,” “instrument of foreign powers,” “parallel organization” and “Hashishins.” On Tuesday, he defined the movement as the “last gang.” Saying that his government has fought against gangs, military juntas and tutelage as well as other deep powers, the prime minister added, “There will not be any obstacle in the way of democracy when this last gang becomes a thing of the past.” He also said his government managed to stop the “Dec. 17 coup attempt.” In addition, he accused Hizmet of spying and added, “The responsible figures and evidence [of a coup attempt] will soon be exposed.” The prime minister has put forward many claims since Dec. 17, but he has not provided any satisfactory evidence to back up these claims. I wonder how he will prove his allegations of spying.
To prove whether the Gülen movement has a parallel structure , one has to establish that the investigations and wiretappings were not conducted within the scope of a legal investigation. If that is proven, one has to demonstrate that the police and prosecutors in charge of the investigations were receiving instructions not from the state but from sources within the movement. Both of these claims have to be proven with evidence.
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Last month, when Hizmet representatives criticized the government-proposed legislation that calls for banning exam prep schools, Turkish and Western journalists labeled this opposition as a feud between Prime Minister Erdogan and Mr. Gulen because roughly 15-25 percent of these prep schools were founded by Hizmet participants according to various estimates. But that is an oversimplification.
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Erdoğan has exploited the presence of Gülen-inspired people in the state bureaucracy as a tool to silence all opposition and grasp yet more power. If the Gülen movement did not exist, the president would have needed to create another “enemy of the state” to fight against in order to reach his ultimate aim.
America Shouldn’t Give up Fethullah Gülen to Turkey
Erdoğan played the failed coup rather like Adolf Hitler used the Reichstag fire: as a fortuitous opportunity to crush critics as well as enemies. Indeed, there were suggestions that the Erdoğan government was aware of the plot but chose to allow plotters to proceed in hopes of reaping political gain.
RELIABLE ENVIRONMENT : GULEN INSPIRED SCHOOLS
Gulen Inspired Schools provides an environment where they trust in a clear long-term gain. One of the main factors behind the success of these schools is commitment and dedications that have been presented by teachers and managers. One common characteristic of the staff is the commitment to the common goal to make a positive impact to the society.
‘Humiliating people not allowed in Islam’
A man identified as Mustafa Petek asked the Religious Affairs Directorate on March 24 if Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the Hizmet movement, deserves to be a target of hate speech by state officials. The Religious Affairs Directorate, in response to the man’s query on hate speech, said, “In Islam, no one is allowed to humiliate a person or refer to him using adjectives that don’t represent him.”
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