Date posted: April 19, 2016
International Festival of Language and Culture will be on April 17, 2016 at Sydney Opera House www.intflc.org.au
Source: IFLC Australia , Apr 10, 2016
Tags: Australia | Education | Hizmet-inspired schools | Turkish Olympiads |

Dimitris Christopolous, FIDH President: The Pakistani government’s deportation of a Turkish family should set off alarm bells. The Pakistani government must ensure the protection of the other 285 individuals who risk being deported to Turkey and put an end to the blatant disregard of its international obligations.

Since the ill-intentioned Maarif Foundation was found by Erdoğan regime in wake of failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016, just for aiming at taking over the successful schools operated by Turkish civic society, Gülen movement, the step has not been welcomed by the affected schools in Afghanistan.

Authorities have ordered teachers with alleged links to Turkish cleric Gulen to leave the country as Turkey’s President Erdogan visits Pakistan. Experts say the move is aimed at appeasing Ankara. Pakistani liberal activists say Islamabad should not encourage Erdogan by obliging his government’s unlawful and authoritarian demands. Promotion of secular and democratic values is the only way forward, they say.

Turkish government anger with the Gulen movement, over its alleged involvement in the failed July 15 coup, has spread to Africa. Governments are being pressured into closing down Gulen schools. Children are romping around the school grounds apparently without a care in the world. A few of them are standing together and reciting in unison […]

The Hizmet has proven that one can remain religiously observant and rise against tyranny at the same time. Thank God the Hizmet movement is one of the main actors in Turkey that has resisted the seemingly democratic but actually autocratic AK Party government’s lawless policies.

Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who has put forward an interpretation of Islam that advocates peace, democracy, secularism (in the sense of freedom of religion and conscience for all), science, education and a market economy, and who has supported interfaith dialogue and mutual understanding and respect for people of different ethnic and religious identities and lifestyles, has been the topic of much curiosity for native as well as foreign observers of Turkey.
