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.
In several cases, Turkey has offered to run the seized institutions, although it is expected to face legal challenges. Kimse Yok Mu, which had more than 200,000 volunteers in 100 countries before being forcibly closed after the coup attempt, is understood to be preparing to take the decision to international courts. Joshua Hendrick, an expert on the Gulen movement said Ankara faced a big challenge when it came to stepping into the shoes of its former allies.
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“There are problems everywhere in the world,” he continued, “but we are the ones responsible for fixing those problems. We can’t tell one person or group to ‘fix it.’ We have to work together to fix the world and make it a better place.”
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The Rumi Forum, an international organization promoting interfaith dialogue and peace, presented awards celebrating peace and dialogue initiatives at their annual Peace and Dialogue Awards ceremony in Washington on Tuesday. Bishop Desmond Tutu’s daughter Naomi accepted the Extraordinary Commitment to Dialogue and Reconciliation Award on behalf of her father, which she said her father accepted as a great honor.
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Mr. President, I have spoken many times on the Senate floor in defense of press freedom because it is a fundamental cornerstone of a democratic society. Today I want to briefly draw the Senate’s attention to the situation in Turkey, one of the many countries in the world where this basic right is under threat by officials in the government who seek to silence their critics.
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Some TL 12 billion (about $4 billion) in property has been transferred to the Treasury as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, said Minister for Environment and Urbanization Mehmet Özhaseki on Thursday. Immediately after the putsch, the government along with Erdoğan pinned the blame on the Gülen movement without credible evidence.
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