Turkey Continues Its Witch Hunt Against Gülen Followers
Photos of the individuals arrested and detained. Source: Turkish Minute.
Date posted: September 3, 2016
MICHAEL VAN DER GALIEN
The purges continue unabated in Turkey. On Friday, 218 individuals were arrested on charges of being members of a terrorist organization. Another 421 were detained.
These arrests and detentions took place more than 6 weeks after the Turkish military staged a failed coup. In the meantime, not only the military officers responsible for the coup have been arrested, but the same goes for many others: people who had absolutely nothing to do with the coup, but who are simply accused of sympathizing with Fethullah Gülen, the Islamic scholar Turkey says masterminded the coup.
In what’s becoming a repetitive story, a host of journalists, lawyers, teachers and civil servants were among those arrested by the authorities.
All in all, more than 41,000 people have been detained in recent weeks, and more than 22,000 individuals were arrested. According to the latest reports, a sum total of 130,000 people have lost their jobs.
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The police officers came to the doctor’s door in Istanbul at 6 a.m. and one of them said, “You are accused of attempting to kill President Erdogan.” The doctor couldn’t help it; he laughed. “Really? I did that?” The police officers smiled, too. “Yes. Also for attempting to destroy Turkey and for being a member of a terrorist organization.”
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Gulen’s words were clearly a conditional curse or a committing of his affair to God in total submission in the face of horrendous lies. “If your accusations are true, may God destroy us. But if your accusations are wrong, then may God destroy you,” he had said. Amen.
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Mr. President, I have spoken many times on the Senate floor in defense of press freedom because it is a fundamental cornerstone of a democratic society. Today I want to briefly draw the Senate’s attention to the situation in Turkey, one of the many countries in the world where this basic right is under threat by officials in the government who seek to silence their critics.
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