Abant Platform calls for ‘respect for sacred’ in Africa meeting
Date posted: March 12, 2014
ADDIS ABABA
The 32nd Abant Platform, which took place in Addis Ababa over the weekend, confirmed its commitment to the respect for sacred values and the encouragement of freedom of religion by international and regional organizations.
In a joint meeting with the African Union, the Abant Platform hosted 155 distinguished participants from 15 countries in the capital of Ethiopia.
The United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) decision on the struggle against intolerance toward different religions was a common talking point at the meeting to promote respect for the sacred. The Abant Platform said that freedom of expression and respect for sacred values are complimentary and that the former does not mean the freedom to attack sacred values.
The Abant Platform also urged the media to play a constructive role in the protection of respect for sacred values and called on all governments, nongovernmental organizations and civil society institutions to take a stance defending respect for the sacred.
Turkish minister: Gulenists are more dangerous than ISIL because they’re well-educated
Berat Albayrak, Turkish energy minister and son-in-law of President Tayyip Erdoğan, has said at a conference that people affiliated with the Gülen movement are more dangerous than Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants because they’re well educated and have “higher IQs” than his own.
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Turkey at large will lose as Erdoğan chooses the retaliatory path and purges relentlessly, splitting the country into supporters and adversaries. A climate of fear and indignation will envelop not only the many institutions that were hit hard, but Turkey in general, and the Middle East will suffer even further than it is already suffering.
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Intellectual deviations
Mahçupyan’s analysis of the Hizmet movement’s perspective on the Kurdish issue is wrong. When the settlement process was launched, the Hizmet movement announced its full support for the solution, with Gülen saying, “Peace is in itself goodness, and peace brings happiness.” It advocated non-violent social actors competing with each other freely and under democratic conditions. It openly declared that the right to education in one’s mother tongue is one of the fundamental human rights.
Politics and communities
The state can no longer control the estate in its entirety. As a matter of fact, society and politics cannot be perceived as an “estate.” Thus, civil forces and communities want to be influential over decision-making mechanisms related to political processes and public polices, not over the state.
We would like to increase the number of Turkish schools
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