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.
Despite the fact that Turkey has recently adopted legislation against hate crimes, Turkey’s divisive Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has not stopped his attacks with verbal expressions of intolerance and hatred directed at the judiciary, opposition parties, the media, business groups and members of the Hizmet movement, a faith-based civic movement inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
The Pigeon, The Finger, and Hizmet’s ‘Inevitable Ambiguity’
Hizmet combines characteristics that we are not used to seeing combined in such a way: faith-inspired (in motivation) yet faith-neutral (in so many activities), informed by Qur’anic principles yet inclusive and non-missionary, predominantly Muslim but proactively engaging with wider society and responding constructively to modern and post-modern ideas and lifestyles.
Turkey’s greatest service to the Muslim world
Turkey was a shining star during the years that it implemented democratic reforms internally and improved relations with other countries, particularly its neighbors. Both the West and the Muslim world were watching Turkey’s progress intently and its economic success and democratic transformation would be referred to as exemplary.
Election results and the Hizmet movement
Unlike the perception that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tried to create, with the help of tremendous media power, the contention in the run-up to the elections was never between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Hizmet movement (or the so-called foreign forces that colluded with it).
Gülen’s lawyer, Court of Appeals deny claims of AK Party official
“I think the ministry of justice went beyond its authority in making a change requiring the judges and prosecutors to inform the administration about investigations,” Akyol further added, urging everyone to keep the rule of law above political conflicts.
GYV condemns Suruç attack, calls for measures against terror threats
The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) has strongly condemned what it called “a nefarious attack” near the Syrian border that killed at least 31 people, calling on authorities to take urgent steps to prevent such terrorist attacks.
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