Human Rights Watch Director: This is a political purge… pure and simple!
Date posted: January 31, 2017
HizmetNews.Com
Reuters reports that Turkish authorities have dismissed more than 90,000 public servants for alleged connections to a coup attempt in July 2016. Labour Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said 125,485 people from the public service had been put through legal proceedings after the coup attempt, and that 94,867 of those had been dismissed so far.
Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch Director, has denounced the purge saying “No one pretends there were 90,000 coup plotters. This is a political purge, pure and simple. Erdogan’s Turkey”
No one pretends there were 90,000 coup plotters. This is a political purge, pure and simple. Erdogan’s Turkey. https://t.co/VBH6qIxYDU
As Reuters reports [Erdogan’s] Turkey has been rooting out followers of the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan accuses the Gulen’s Hizmet movement of having infiltrated state institutions and plotted to overthrow the government. Gulen has unequivocally denied the allegations and condemned the coup immediately before it was repelled.
Islamic scholar Gülen urges followers to remain calm in face of insults
Fethullah Gülen, the inspiration behind the Hizmet movement, which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to insult and target with a smear campaign, threatening to pursue criminal proceeding against it, has urged his followers to remain calm and avoid making inflammatory remarks about those who appeal to insults.
Twitter users protest plan to close prep schools in Turkey
Turkish Twitter users are in an uproar over a report that the government has drafted a law which would close thousands of private preparatory education centres (known as “dershanes”) across the country. The schools are reportedly a point of tension between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government and the Gülen movement that runs many of the schools.
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Hate-filled language, such as “dirty water mixed with the milk,” “we will enter their dens” and “hashashin,” all uttered by the prime minister as part of his hate speech against the Gülen movement, was also a method employed during the witch-hunts in medieval Europe.
Turkey needs a new constitution to save its democracy
Until recently Turkey was seen as an example of a country that prospered while maintaining a democratic government run by observant Muslim leaders. No longer. A small group within the government’s executive branch is holding to ransom the entire country’s progress. The support of a broad segment of the Turkish public is now being squandered, along with the opportunity to join the EU.
Wealthy businessmen spent time with Kurdish poor and Syrian refugees during Eid al-Adha
Thousands of [Hizmet] businessmen and volunteers from Western Turkey spent this year’s Eid al-Adha in East and South East of the country so as to strengthen the brotherhood between Kurdish and Turkish citizens, and extend a helping hand to Syrian refuges. The provinces in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey have significant Kurdish populations. People in these parts of Turkey suffer poverty and various social problems.
Diplomatic Row over Gulen Influence in Africa
Turkey’s relations with African countries have been strained following demands by the Turkish government to close Gulenist schools in Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia. After the attempted coup in Turkey on July 15, which the Turkish government has accused Gulen of masterminding, Turkey’s ambassador to Nigeria called for 17 Gulenist schools in the country to be closed.
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