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.
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.
Jihad Turk on Fethullah Gulen and Hizmet Movement
Jihad Turk, a founding Board Member of Claremont Lincoln University, has been instrumental in the establishment of Bayan Claremont, a graduate school designed to train Muslim scholars and religious leaders. He previously served as the Director of Religious Affairs at the Islamic Center of Southern California.
Turkey’s tryst with democracy (1)
All of Erdoğan’s recent acts reflect a serious deficit of democracy in the ruling government. These acts include making bogus claims of a parallel structure; targeting institutions linked to Fethullah Gülen’s Hizmet movement; embark on a massive reshuffle of thousands of officials without any reasonable grounds; changing the structure of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) to subjugate the judiciary; openly interfering in the media; strengthening the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and bringing it under the direct control of the prime minister; banning Twitter and YouTube; and speaking with a threatening, bullying and polarizing tone.
Religious leader: I was told to blame Gülen movement for police banning my group meeting
Alparslan Kuytul, president of the Furkan Foundation and leader of a religious group critical of the Turkish government, said he was advised to put the blame on the faith-based Gülen movement for a police intervention in a meeting of his followers in April and that the government would ultimately clear the way for his group to operate freely.
200 public servants sue PM over ‘parallel state’ statements
Interior Minister Efkan Ala was questioned about the government’s actions against “the parallel state” and the “Cemaat,” referring to the followers of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who has been in voluntary exile in the United States for over a decade.
PBS airs story on Gülen movement
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly featured a story on the Gülen movement on Friday, quoting well-respected American observers, as well as the movement’s members and admirers. The 10-minute-long story by PBS correspondent Luck Severson gave information on the movement, which is a group of volunteers engaged in interfaith and intercultural dialogue […]
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