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.
Students of Fatih Schools take first place in LYS and TEOG exams
Students of the Fatih Schools network — which are inspired by the faith-based Gülen movement — popularly known as the Hizmet movement — were the top scorers in both the Transition from Primary to Secondary Education (TEOG) exams taken from Nov. 26-27 and April 29-30 and the Undergraduate Placement Examination (LYS).
Turkey ‘looking for scapegoats’ by linking schools in Nigeria to failed coup
Speaking with TheCable in an interview on Friday, Cemal Yigit, spokesman of NTIC, said Gulen does not own the Turkish schools in Nigeria, and that the schools are the property of private investors – some of them Nigerians. He said that the Turkish government was on a purge of the opposition in Turkey, and that it was trying to decimate any organisation that shared the philosophy of Gulen by tagging them terrorists.
World’s oldest temple closed to visitors due to excavation team links with Gülen
Gobekli Tepe, the world’s oldest temple at more than 11,000 years, has been closed to visitors for 15 months due to alleged links of the excavation team leader and sub-contractor to the faith-based Gülen movement.
Turkish PM Erdoğan’s chain of mistakes
“There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must be not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, and positions which must not be contested.” Erdoğan’s most serious problem is this. Based on the fact that he has come out successful in every crisis he has encountered, he always uses the same strategy to overcome difficulties. I call this the “curse of winning every battle.”
Turkey’s once-worldly aims falter, even close allies concerned
Power appears to have gone to the prime minister’s head. Angling to become president in order to extend his rule, Erdogan is foolishly profiling and purging former friends in the Hizmet movement, recently firing hundreds of government employees who are allegedly (no one knows for sure as there’s no evidence) sympathetic to the movement’s founder, Fethullah Gulen
Islamic scholar Gülen calls for calm among supporters
Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has called on his supporters to remain calm and be patient in the wake of rumors that Istanbul police were planning to start an operation to round up hundreds of people close to his movement. Gülen called for patience and calm among the relatives of those who are being probed or expecting probes against them, advising them to pray and read the Quran.
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