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”

 

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.

 

 

 

 


Related News

Gulen sympathizer stabbed by pro-Erdogan relative in Belgium

Ibrahim Anaz, one of the executives at a Brussels-based association sympathetic to the Gulen movement, was stabbed by a family member who is a supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to local media.

Members of US Congress withstand intense pressure over press freedom letter

Members of the US Congress who submitted a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry last month on the dismal state of media freedom in Turkey are standing firm behind their signatures despite intense pressure from the Turkish government and the pro-government media.

Portrait of an Anatolian Muslim with no schooling*

It seems like this season is a season for losing fathers. Yesterday, like many friends around me, I too lost my father. All fathers are great, but mine was different, an extraordinarily good person. He had a finger in every innovation that was brought to the village. Although he never went to school, he could speak and write in Ottoman and [modern] Turkish. He would read history books for the curious in the house.

The next phase in Turkey’s political violence – third and coming coup could be the most violent

It has now been almost three months since the failed coup in Turkey. The events of July 15 were predictable, but they nevertheless mark a watershed in modern Turkish history. Still, it would be a mistake to view the coup as a single event. Turkey actually experienced two coups, but it will be the third and coming coup which could be the most violent and might very well cost Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan his life.

Purge of ‘parallel state’ or legitimizing discrimination

The profiling of religious Muslim students who are part of the Hizmet movement caused them to be barred from obtaining high positions such as being academics at state institutions, according to Aymaz.

Turkish Islamic scholar Gülen loses 72-year-old brother

Seyfullah Gülen, the brother of leading Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, died at the age of 72 on Friday morning at the private Şifa Hospital in Erzurum, where he had been receiving treatment after a heart attack.

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

WSJ, Judiciary, Gulen Movement, and the Government

African students sad over govt’s move to wipe out Kimse Yok Mu

Islamic scholar Gülen criticizes Turkish gov’t response to Gezi protests

“Volunteers of education can end the chaos in the Muslim world”

Nigerian instability not a current threat for Turkish community

Bank Asya says it weathers ‘stress test’, still strong

Dialogue Institute provides insight in Kansas City area on Turkey

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News