Tension has risen not only in Parliament but also in public squares. Deputies will apparently have to work for at least another full week.
Parliamentary commissions have recently worked weekends too. Yesterday [on Saturday], deputies discussed two bills, one on shutting down the prep schools [dershanes] and the other on [expanding the powers of ] the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). Both bills are controversial. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) plans to shut down the prep schools instead of finding a solution for the problem [the need to improve public schools]. Prep schools do not appear to be the real issue here. The education bill is just a message to a specific audience. It turned out to be the first step in the destruction of the Hizmet movement [inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen]. The new bill [on dershanes] is not limited to prep schools. It aims to almost “reestablish” the Ministry of Education [by reassigning thousands of officials].
Turkey’s MGK says discussed organizations threatening national security
Although Erdoğan insists that there would be a legal move against the Hizmet, opponents and critical voices point to lack of evidence necessary for a criminal investigation against the Movement.
Predictability in Erdoğan’s Turkey
The most significant damage beleaguered Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has inflicted on Turkey in a frantic effort to rescue himself, his children and close associates from legal troubles amid massive corruption, money laundering and illegal land-zoning deals was a blow to the “credibility” of Turkey and “predictability” in its political and economic environment.
‘Gülen movement has a specific mission’
… If the [Fethullah] Gülen movement were a small, ineffective community, the AKP would never have disturbed it. Or if the Gülen movement had acted in full cooperation with the government, such a conflict wouldn’t have occurred. But the Gülen movement has a specific mission. What is that mission? They seek to obtain the pleasure of God by leading good religious lives and engaging in educational and social services.
Questions for the government regarding prep school closure
BÜLENT KENEŞ What we have concluded after discussing the government’s plan to shut down prep schools for the past 12 days is that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is resolved to proceed with the plan. In this process we have understood that no argument about prep schools’ contributions to education, pedagogy, the principle of equal […]
Ankara assassination: Why Erdogan blames the Gulenists and ignores the jihadists
Ironically, Erdogan finds it more expedient to blame Hizmet, rather than Daesh (IS), for the jihadist atrocities being consistently perpetrated in Turkey today. Thus, the Turkish Islamist president has got a scapegoat following all terror incidents of jihadist nature or other internal crisis engulfing the country.
Erdoğan says his gov’t will carry out ‘witch hunt’
There are rumors that the only criteria behind these purges is links to a “parallel state,” a term the government has been using to define the Hizmet movement, which is a grassroots movement based on voluntary participation to spread interfaith dialogue and tolerance, with a particular emphasis on education.
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