Fethullah Gulen: No Return from Democracy!


Date posted: August 22, 2014

Fethullah Gulen speaks at the commencement reception of Journalists and Writers Foundation in 1994:

As with the entire world, people in Turkey are also heading towards democracy. To date, majority of the people in Turkey have lived only with the ten percent of democracy; they were able to get only one tenth of it, and have survived up to this date with that.

I believe, from now on, both in Turkey and in the rest of the world, there will we no going back from democracy.


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The Turkish population already is strongly polarized on the AKP regime. A Turkey under a dictatorial regime, providing haven to violent radicals and pushing its Kurdish citizens into desperation, would be a nightmare for Middle East security. I probably will not live to see Turkey become an exemplary democracy, but I pray that the downward authoritarian drift can be stopped before it is too late.

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