Date posted: July 18, 2016
CNN’s Ivan Watson looks at Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric living in the US who President Erdogan squarely blames for the deadly failed
Source: CNN , July 17, 2016
Tags: Defamation of Hizmet | Fethullah Gulen | Hizmet and politics | Military coups in Turkey |

Mr. Erdogan’s witch-hunt in Turkey accelerated with the globalization of the Hizmet movement. When he closed the doors to activities such as language and culture festivals, other countries welcomed them. When Mr. Erdogan urged Turkish ambassadors to lobby their respective foreign governments to help close down schools started by Hizmet participants, those governments refused to go along.

When we think of Hizmet, Jews conscious of our own history either can say, “There but for the grace of God go we,” or we can think of Rabbi Hillel: “If we are only for ourselves, what are we? And if now, when?”

A press release prepared by the Alliance for Shared Values says Saylorsburg resident Fethullah Gulen, the prominent Muslim cleric, has urged people of all faiths to come together to address global conflict at the first-ever US Muslim-Catholic Dialogue Conference, which seeks to promote interfaith dialogue and mutual respect worldwide.

Luxembourg’s foreign minister said on Monday that the Turkish government’s handling of civil servants dismissed after a failed coup attempt reminded him of methods used by the Nazis, and that sooner or later the EU would have to respond with sanctions.

Turkey’s purge has removed military officers who’d been key figures in the US-led fight against the so-called “Islamic State,” says US intelligence head James Clapper. He called it a setback in US-Turkish cooperation.

Several courts have ruled against untruthful stories published or broadcast by media institutions close to the government about the Hizmet movement, which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has accused of trying to undermine his government, but most newspapers and stations have not published the corrections as they should according to the rulings.
