When asked about the issue of Erdoğan’s survival, [CHP Istanbul deputy] Erdoğdu said: “The upcoming presidential election [which is scheduled for Aug. 10] is not the main part of this struggle. He might be elected president and elude the graft investigation. What about his son Bilal and other family members? How can they escape an investigation? The main battle is between Erdoğan and the Hizmet movement. That is why Erdoğan talks about eliminating the movement. He considers the matter a fight for survival.”
When the graft allegations first surfaced on Dec. 17 of last year, the government and its media did everything to undermine the reputation of the Hizmet movement. Even AK Party deputies who resigned because of increasingly anti-democratic practices became targets. The government’s ambition to finish off the Hizmet movement is still continuing, and Erdoğan has pledged to eliminate the movement.
Excerpted from the interview published on Today’s Zaman, 26 July 2014, Saturday
HAKAN YAVUZ* In general terms, the Gulen movement reflects a new understanding of Islam and modernity from within an Islam that is informed by Anatolian modern history and secular progress: This is a civil Islam that has successfully found fresh ways to inspire social activism through piety. It has modernized the humanistic treasures of Islam […]
The Guardian view on the week in Turkey: coup – and counter-coup?
Now, with the European convention on human rights suspended and a six-month state of emergency that allows President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to rule without parliament – although thousands still turn out nightly in his support – some are beginning to wonder if the cure has turned out to be little better than the original threat.
Can the West believe in Islamic progress?
This means the [Gulen] movement’s Islamic core is intertwined with an internalization of Western Weberian and Calvinist worldviews, highlighting the interconnectedness of religious principles and economic applications, believing, in the spirit of Capitalism, that socioeconomic prosperity is the most favorable way to bring about and reflect God’s pleasure.
‘Let my husband go to another country, just not Turkey’
Turkish citizen Turgay Karaman fears being deported back to Turkey, his wife Ayse Gul said today. “If his arrest has anything to do with political matters, and if the Malaysian authorities don’t want him here, they can send him to any other country but just not Turkey, because they will torture him there,” she told a press conference after the meeting.
Government blocks bank accounts of aid organization
The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government’s efforts to disrupt the work of Turkey’s leading aid organization Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There) continues with the unlawful blocking of the organization’s bank accounts on Oct. 22.
Myanmar-based family abducted by Turkish embassy from Yangon airport
Myanmar-based education professional M. Furkan Sökmen and his family were detained yesterday at the Yangon International Airport while trying to board a flight to Bangkok. the teacher said the Turkish ambassador to Myanmar had pressured police to confiscate the family’s passports.
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