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.
Both sides [Hizmet movement and the AK Party government] see this rift as a matter of life and death. If you are in a struggle for existence, you do your best to attack the other side, but by doing so, you make mistakes, damage yourself and the other side.
Turkey’s failed coup has spread to the classroom in EU states
What really annoyed the Dutch government, however, was when the Turkish consul general sent a letter to local authorities in the Netherlands advising them how to curb public protests opposing the government in Ankara. That brought a coldly dismissive response from foreign minister, Bert Koenders: “The Netherlands deals with Dutch society and that has nothing to do with the Turkish government.”
Medialog calls for law against hate speech and crime [in Turkey]
In a two-day conference on hate speech and hate crime organized by Medialog (a platform under Journalist and Writers Foundation) in İstanbul, leading journalists and academics urged the government to draft a law against defamation, blasphemy and discrimination while protecting the freedom of expression.
Nigeria – Our students should not be victims of Turkey’s high-handedness and authoritarianism
We strongly condemn the arrest, detention and deportation of some Nigerian students from Turkey’s capital city, Istanbul, over the botched coup in the country. The harassment and intimidation of our students by the Turkish Government over a matter that does not concern them is undiplomatic and utterly reprehensible. The Turkish government should not visit the punishment for the alleged actions of its political enemies on innocent Nigerian students.
A destructive option for Turkey takes shape
It is a “parallel state,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claims, and the movement gets help from its die-hard loyal media, as well as some leftist-secular circles and even from abroad. Such diversion on this issue helps him buy time, water down the content of accusations and divert attention.
Gülen says he supports broader press freedoms
Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has said he advocates broader rights specifically in the arenas of freedom of expression and freedom of the press for journalists, including those who “unjustly” accuse him of conspiring against them. The allegations were recently voiced following the recent release of four journalists released pending trial in the OdaTV case, […]
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