Unidentified individuals have graffitied offensive remarks on a wall of the Turkish Cultural Center (TCC) in the city of West Haven, Connecticut.
The graffiti echoes Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hate speech against the Hizmet movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, with which the cultural center is affiliated.
The TCC has been serving the Turkish-American community in Connecticut for seven years. Mehmet Elmacı, the coordinator of the organization, told Turkish media outlets that the incident was unprecedented. “We are a cultural center that does not take part in politics. Our goal has been to share Turkey’s cultural heritage with our community. We condemn those individuals who are inspired by Erdoğan’s hate speech toward the Hizmet movement to write offensive remarks on our walls,” he said.
A new community of Turkish immigrants has taken root in Rhode Island. And its leading members, some of them refugees seeking political asylum in the United States, are spreading a message of tolerance and diversity through their work at Dialogue Foundation, a new organization with a headquarters near Wayland Square.
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Before the live feed was cut from the Zaman building on that Friday in March, I watched police shoot rubber bullets into the crowd gathered to protest the paper’s seizure. Bloodied, the crowd retreated, still screaming for free speech but knowing hope was gone.
Gulen followers encourage education, awareness
In spite of the recent subversive attempts to have cleric Fethullah Gulen extradited to Turkey, members of the Alliance for Shared Values are encouraging education and awareness to combat the government’s tactics.
Misrepresentation of Fethullah Gülen in English-language media
The language in general and the way certain politically significant words are used in some of this media coverage are somewhat problematic in the sense that they fail to present the full picture about Gülen, if not deliberately create doubts and prejudices about him.
Foreign students express bewilderment over gov’t bid to close Turkish schools
Foreign students who are graduates of schools opened by Turkish entrepreneurs affiliated with the Hizmet movement all around the world, have expressed bewilderment over the government’s plan to shut down the schools, saying that the Turkish government is making a grave mistake in targeting these schools as they are renowned and praised for their high-quality education by foreigners.
How does the Hizmet movement fare with democracy?
Ruling elites of this country, unfortunately, have targeted different groups at different times. Thus, religious people, Kurds, Alevis, nationalists (ülkücüs), leftists, non-Muslim minorities and democratic intellectuals have been in the bull’s eye for attacks from these elites. The Hizmet movement has always been a member of this list of plagued groups.
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