AK Party provincial board member resigns after insults
Date posted: February 24, 2014
İSTANBUL
Ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) İzmir provincial board member Emine Yenen has resigned from the party after being subjected to insults and discriminatory treatment by party members, Turkish news sources reported on Monday.
“At first there was the alienation and isolation of those labeled as ‘Gülenists’ within the [AK] Party. Then, we started to be labeled as members of a terrorist organization, and ‘hashashin.’ It had come to push and shove in the party. The accusations had reached an unacceptable level,” said Yenen.
Hashashins were hash-smoking hitmen who committed assassinations in the 11th century, giving rise to the English word “assassin.” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used the term in public last month in a thinly veiled reference to members of the Hizmet movement, which is inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
“For my own self-respect I resigned from my position and from the party,” said Yenen, who is a doctor and a member of the Aegean International Health Federation (ESAFED) and is known for her volunteer work in several African countries.
The past couple of months have been tumultuous in Turkey. In short order, an ill-conceived military coup was followed by popular mass protest, the quick return of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to power, and a wave of repression ranging from military and judicial purges, to state restrictions on a panoply of basic human rights protections, to allegations of “widespread human rights abuses” by state actors.
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Hizmet cannot establish a political party because politics all over the world are mostly based on contention, challenge, belittling opponents and division. Forming a political party would harm the Hizmet movement but similar to Rumi’s compass, it endeavors to establish critically constructive contact with every single human being on the planet. Its main mission is to build bridges across cultures, communities, religions and so on.
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