While responding to a question on hate speech, the Religious Affairs Directorate said on Monday that Islam does not allow its followers to use such discourse.
A man identified as Mustafa Petek asked the Religious Affairs Directorate on March 24 if Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the Hizmet movement, deserves to be a target of hate speech by state officials. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and several government officials have been targeting Gülen and the movement, calling him a “false prophet,” “fake saint” and “bogus scholar,” and Hizmet a “parallel state,” a “gang,” “cave dwellers,” “tools,” a “virus,” a “tumor,” an “illegal organization” and “raving Hashishin,” which was a medieval order of assassins.
The Religious Affairs Directorate, in response to the man’s query on hate speech, said, “In Islam, no one is allowed to humiliate a person or refer to him using adjectives that don’t represent him.”
Accusing the Hizmet movement, which insistently demands the fulfillment of the steps towards democratization which I referred to above and contributes to the process of change as evidenced by its stance in the referendum, of serving as a parallel structure indirectly means: “I will not change myself and introduce universal reforms. You have to live with this painful fact for the normalization of the country and take your steps accordingly.”
Erdogan Moves to Shut Prep Schools in Blow to Gulen Followers
The issue is important to Gulen’s followers, who teach about 400,000 of the 1.2 million prep school students. The schools offer additional training to students preparing for exams from elementary schools to universities.
Erdogan has so far removed thousands of police officers and prosecutors on suspected ties to Gulen’s movement, while pro-government media has targeted companies for alleged links to the cleric.
Mr. Erdogan’s Jaw-Dropping Hypocrisy
Tayyip Erdogan, has gall. He has jailed tens of thousands of people, shuttered more than 150 media companies and called a referendum in April to enlarge his powers. Yet when local authorities in Germany, for security reasons, barred two Turkish ministers from campaigning among Turks living in Germany, Mr. Erdogan exploded, accusing Germany of Nazi practices and knowing nothing about democracy.
WSJ, Judiciary, Gulen Movement, and the Government
The news I read in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) took me by great surprise. Supposedly, (former Gen. Staff) Ilker Basbug’s imprisonment for life was a message from the Gulen Movement to Erdogan, saying, “Beware! You cannot seek resolution on the Kurdish issue without our permission.” The claim that there was an organizational grouping of members of […]
The fate of prosecutors
An election was held at the Ankara Bar Association recently. Nuh Mete Yüksel, who was among the powers that be in the prosecutorial community in the past, entered while this was taking place. He was once an awe-inspiring prosecutor. Apparently, he retired from prosecuting and became a lawyer. Of course, he is now deprived of the terrifying appearance he had in those years. He no longer has the frigid countenance that would send everyone’s hearts throbbing with fear. As it happens, some lawyers started to protest harshly the “fledgling lawyer.” Moreover, the hall was filled with shouts of “Go away!” So Yüksel had to go back without casting his vote…
Turkish women make a difference in Africa
“Kimse Yok Mu has been very active in Africa providing humanitarian and development assistance. State-level or diplomatic presence has occasionally followed the NGO presence in Africa,” Cevik told SES Türkiye.
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