Police chiefs removed in four provinces across Turkey

Date posted: March 15, 2014

İSTANBUL

Police chiefs of Giresun, Muğla, Sivas and Van provinces were removed from their posts by the government on Saturday, Turkish media reported.

The removals come roughly three months after a wide-ranging corruption investigation that implicated prominent bureaucrats and businessmen close to the ruling party went public on Dec. 17.

More than 8,000 police officers and about 130 prosecutors have been removed from their posts and reassigned since the corruption scandal broke.

The purges are thought to be an attempt to remove those the government believes are members of the Hizmet movement from public sector jobs.

Source: Todays Zaman , March 15, 2014

Tags: Democracy | Freedoms | Hizmet (Gulen) movement | Turkey |

Related News

HRW: 6 Turks taken from Kosovo to Turkey face risk of torture and abuse

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, on Saturday tweeted that six Turkish nationals who were arrested by Kosovar police on Thursday and apparently spirited out of the country by Turkish intelligence later in the day would face the risk of torture and abuse in Turkey.

What is at stake is not prep schools [in Turkey]

Will Prime Minister Erdoğan really close prep schools down if he is bent on it? Why not? Although Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, speaking after a Cabinet meeting last Monday, tried to reassure people by announcing that the government will discuss the matter once more with the stakeholders involved, PM Erdoğan refuted Arınç once again by saying they would shut them down. Isn’t this sufficient in showing his resolve in this regard?

Fate of Pak-Turk Schools: Erdogan, Jamaat-e-Islami-backed Maa’rif Foundation?

At the heart of the matter is the question of Maa’rif’s credentials to take over the schools instead of its Pakistani management. Turkey is least known for its standard of education. Moreover, the Erdogan-backed organisation is neither experienced in the education field nor apolitical. The organisation is already scared with allegation of child sexually abuse in Turkey.

AK Party deputy Hakan Şükür against closure of prep schools

Former national team captain and current Justice and Development Party (AK Party) İstanbul deputy Hakan Şükür, referring to the government’s plan to shut down prep schools, has said it was wrong to vote “yes” on their closure before a process is carried out which eliminates the need for the schools.

A Muslim voice to be heeded

The majority of Muslims openly and loudly reject violent extremism regardless of the religious or ethnic identity of the perpetrator, but that is not what the Western media focuses on. If we closely look into a broad poll, we will see hundreds of Muslim leaders denouncing terrorism, and one of these Muslim voices that we don’t listen to is Fethullah Gülen.

People overwhelmingly support democracy as answer to Kurdish issue

About 90 percent of the Turkish public believe the Kurdish question cannot be settled through military means but by democratization, and that expanding cultural rights and negotiating are the answers that will finally produce a settlement for Turkey’s decades-long problem with separatist terrorism, according to a recent survey conducted by pollster MetroPOLL.