Corruption investigation: Questions that will hound PM Erdoğan

Everyone is wondering now what is behind the corruption investigation, and the first “suspect” to come to many minds is the Islamist Gülen movement. Tensions between this group and the AKP have been rising over the years, and boiled over recently due to the prep-school issue – a matter that has received wide media coverage.

The Gülen movement denies this but the vitriol flying between daily Zaman, which is close to Gülen, and Yeni Şafak, which is staunchly pro-AKP, is enough to give one a sense of the bitter struggle involved.

Gov’t’s pressure for closure of Turkish schools abroad yields no result

The movement that started out a quarter-century ago to support education for children abroad starting with the autonomous Azerbaijani republic of Nakhchivan has now reached 160 foreign countries, with the founders of the movement and its volunteers welcomed with open arms around the world.

Another woman faces detention at hospital just after giving birth

Elif Coşkun, who just gave birth on Monday night in Turkey’s western province of İzmir, will reportedly be taken into custody at the hospital due to her links to the faith-based Gülen movement, according to an opposition deputy.

AKP deputy: “Imprisoned Gulen supporters and PKK members will be massacred by furious mobs”

Another dirty AKP plan was revealed by AKP deputy Huseyin Kocabiyik. Kocabiyik in his Nov 13th tweet revealed the plan. “Assassinations will be staged against statesmen and furious people will hang all imprisoned PKK members and Hizmet supporters,” he said. “This is what is spoken among the public,” he tweeted.

Turkey purge victims unable to find jobs, leave country

“It’s a kind of civil death,” Kerem Altiparmak, a human rights lawyer and political science professor at Ankara University told Los Angeles Times on Wednesday when describing how the lives of thousands of people change after the July 15 coup attempt.

The Mystery of Turkey’s Failed Coup

In my research, I have been on the inside living with his followers while teaching English at one of the schools. Religion is not taught. It is not in the curriculum. The idea that these are jihadist madrases, or that Gülenists are extremists or terrorists is beyond absurd as anyone who knows them will attest.