Fethullah Gulen Calls Crackdown ‘Dark Pages’ in History – Responses to World Affairs Council of Philadelphia
Date posted: September 16, 2016
Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen whom Turkey accuses of masterminding July’s abortive coup again condemned the Turkish government crackdown on his supporters, saying Thursday that his “heart is aching.”
In videotaped remarks to the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, Fethullah Gulen said the Turkish government is using the attempted coup to justify persecuting his followers, who he said are being “subjected to oppression and tyranny, molestation and unlawful acquisition of their private properties.”
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Turkey has recalled, dismissed, and imprisoned the cream of the crop of its military, its NATO envoys. 400 NATO military envoys in Europe and the United States, the most trained and experienced, have been purged.
Princeton professor accuses Gulen of orchestrating Turkish coup, Harvard professor disagrees
Edward Owen, professor of Middle East history at Harvard, said that he did not believe in Reynold’s certainty of Gülen’s guilt. Owen added that when a person writes “alarmist pieces” like Reynolds’, the main audience for the pieces is Washington. “It is a way of calling attention to yourself, and I imagine that Professor Reynolds would like his name registered by the people in Washington as somebody to go to, to employ, when there is a change in administration in Washington,” Owen said.
A Very Predictable Coup?
First of all, though it is not a major issue, none of us believes that Gulen was behind the coup. It is convenient for Erdogan to blame his principal opponent because it will facilitate the arrests of any and all opponents not linked to the actual coup by claiming that they are Gulenists.
AK Party gov’t violates rule of law with mass profiling of civil servants
Profiling by the government — which a senior member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) admitted to over Twitter — of some 2,000 senior public officials including police chiefs, prosecutors and judges as well as academics, journalists and business people is a violation of the constitution, analysts have said.
Online Interfaith Dialogue Workshop
Respect Graduate School, Bethlemem, PA has launched an online “Interfaith Dialogue Workshop.” The workshops aims to provide basic principles of inter-faith work and empower students with foundational skills to serve in a religiously diverse social context.
Celebrating Turkish Cultural Day
Both the Turkish Cultural Center and City Hall were turned into a Turkish festival, complete with music, food, and dancing. The entire local Turkish community, as well as other cultures, took part in the celebration. Organizers say it’s important to make sure everyone feels welcome.
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