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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In his speech at the opening of the first session, Prof. Seyfettin Yuksel said: “If it had been said a few years ago that we would be discussing ‘Turkey’s direction’ in the coming years, none of us would have believed it. We were sure about Turkey’s direction.” Unfortunately, nowadays Turkey’s direction is seen as uncertain, and the country has strayed not only from its foreign policy but also from democratic norms and the rule of law in its domestic policies. Here are my notes from the conference.
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ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ “A group of people, including businessmen, students and teachers who came all the way from Thailand, traveling 9,000 kilometers to cast their votes in the referendum (on September 12, 2010), are now back to Thailand. Neşet Kahraman, who spent $2,000 on travel in order to cast his vote, said: ‘The referendum was pretty […]
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The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) has strongly criticized and denied news reports suggesting that the Hizmet movement, which is inspired by well-respected Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, dominates the judiciary and bureaucratic positions within the Turkish state, calling the claims groundless. The claims appeared at a time when prosecutors summed up their case in […]
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