Prominent columnist Bağdat slams persecution of Hizmet

Daily columnist Hayko Bağdat
Daily columnist Hayko Bağdat


Date posted: December 9, 2014

Popular daily columnist Hayko Bağdat called for a halt of the witch hunt against Hizmet and expressed the need for tolerance for all social groups in Turkey.

“It is presumptuous for one to believe that they can destroy an entire section of society,” reflected Hayko Bağdat, speaking on the ongoing persecution against the Hizmet movement.

Ever since the December 17-25 probe featuring corruption charges implicating businessmen and government ministers, the government has blamed the Hizmet movement as a scapegoat, accusing it of orchestrating the probe.

Bağdat also criticized pro-government press outlets and touched upon the public threats against outspoken media. “To embark on a witch hunt by threatening a chief editor with jail time is a futile attempt.”

The columnist invoked freedom of the press reminding that certain journalists were starting to pen articles which practically serve as governing AK Party (Justice and Development Party) press releases.

A main theme Bağdat underlined is tolerance for different groups in society. “The Hizmet Movement will live on, as will the Armenians, the Alevis.”

Armenian Issue

Indeed the prominent columnist has dedicated his extensive career, most notably with daily Taraf, into voicing concerns of Turkey’s minority issues including Armenians.

To this end Bağdat welcomes positive developments taking place in Turkey over the Armenian issue. The subject inevitably dates back to World War I, when an estimated 1.5 million Armenian lives were lost in the Ottoman Empire, present-day Turkey.

“I welcome the Prime Minister’s statements of sending condolences and believe that we have also been influential for voicing the issue for years.”

He emphasized “The peace which will solve this issue once and for all, and cure the suffering of people will come from these lands.”
He vowed “The Hizmet Movement will live on, as will the Armenians, the Alevis.”

Unresolved killings affect us all

One particular hot topic that frequently resurfaces in Turkey is the unsolved deaths of prominent figures.

Grand Unity Party (BBP) founder Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu was killed in a helicopter crash in 2009. Bağdat is amongst those who believe that Yazıcıoğlu was assasinated.

A strong rival of the current government with equally strong appeal amongst conservatives and nationalists, the BBP party founder was viewed as a rising figure.

Bağdat expressed there would be no safety in Turkey until the how of Yazıcıoğlu’s death is brought to light “Just think of what a state that killed Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu would do to you or me.”

Source: BGNNews , December 9, 2014

Tags: | | |


Related News

Turkey introduces new decree law to seize all Gulen-related companies

Thanks to a new decree law released as part of the state of emergency declared late on July 20 following a failed coup, Turkey’s government is now set to seize all the Turkish companies owned by businessmen somehow linked to the US-based Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen.

The gov’t in Turkey is committing genocide

Fundamental human rights and freedoms have been suspended in Turkey, people’s right to work, freedom of the press, the right to property ownership, the right to a defense in a court of law, the right to travel and the right to a fair trial have all been annulled while the principle of presumption of innocence has been totally disregarded. People have been subjected to collective punishment through the practice of “enemy law.”

Interview with the Journalists and Writers Foundation Chairman Mustafa Yeşil: Questioning the Gülen Movement: Truths, Lies, and Conspiracies

The Movement fights against ignorance all around the world, reaches and brings service to people who are forgotten by the governments with their volunteers, and helps enrich their morality with Islam and material worlds with their modern institutions and instruments.

Former Turkish officer at NATO: Coup attempt was never meant to succeed

A former Turkish officer who served at NATO headquarters in Brussels but was sacked and recalled to Turkey as part of an investigation into a failed coup on July 15 claims that the putsch was clumsily executed and never intended to bring down the government, but rather served President Erdoğan to eliminate his opponents.

Academics: Hizmet a movement, not a gang; Gülen builds ties

The Hizmet movement led by US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen is not a gang but a movement, academics have said in reaction to a smear campaign led by the Turkish government against the movement and its representatives.

Turkey, ‘The Devil’s Advocate’ and ‘Titanic’

Questions to challenge the primary and unjustified premise: What judicial (or other) process determined that these corruption investigations were a coup attempt against the government? What proof or evidence do you have to support this most serious claim? What disciplinary process did you undertake to determine that the people that were purged were members and culprits of this ‘coup’? In the absence of evidence and disciplinary process how did you determine these people’s association with Hizmet? When is government corruption not a judicial coup? How can you have the right to unilaterally determine the intent and purpose of these ongoing judicial investigations when your government is implicated in them? If your government can purge over 7,000 police officers (and thereby affect and prevent these investigations) without evidence, due process or disciplinary procedure, do you not set a precedent for every future potentially corrupt government to follow?

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Hizmet-affiliated educational institutions succeed in TEOG exam

The Armenian issue of 1915, Turkish politics and Israel

TUSKON: Twitter ban a disappointment in information age

Post-Kemalist Turkey and the Gülen Movement

Turkey, caliphate and Erdoğan

Reflections on Hizmet Movement at conference in Taiwan

Symposium concludes: Hizmet movement contributes to world peace

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News