Couple jailed for watching Fethullah Gülen videos at Internet cafe
Date posted: April 20, 2017
An Ankara couple has been sent to prison after they were caught watching videos belonging to US-based Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen at an internet cafe earlier this week.
Doğan news agency reported on Wednesday that acting on a tip from the internet café owner, police tailed the suspects — Y.M. and M.M. — and detained later them for watching the videos.
The suspects were reportedly sent to an Ankara prison early on Wednesday.
The Turkish government accuses Fethullah Gülen and the Gülen movement of being behind the July 15 coup attempt. Some 115,000 have been detained over Gülen links since last summer while critics often raise the issue of guilt by association. Gülen, meanwhile, strongly denies any involvement.
21st century Pharaoh rises: The tragedy of Turkey’s failed coup
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However, Erdogan has a problem: Whereas Ataturk came to power as a military general, Erdogan has a democratic mandate to govern. Ataturk’s Turkey was rural and only 10 percent of the country was literate at the time, with most educated people supporting his agenda. Erdogan’s Turkey is 80 percent urban and nearly 100 percent literate, and many well-educated Turks oppose his agenda.
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A Case for Why Gulen Would Never Support a Coup
In his interview with the prominent French newspaper Le Monde, Gulen has called the July 15 events in Turkey a “terror coup.” As a man who has always condemned terrorism and violence in any shape or form, to which his life’s work is evidence, it is hard to believe that Gulen could have had the slightest connection to the coup.
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The Yağmur Education, Culture, Youth and Sports Association, which was founded in 2013 by Ahmet Turhan, the Balıkesir governor of the time, has been giving Quran lessons to 60 children during Ramadan.
Another Gülenist teacher at risk of deportation from Bosnia
Fatih Keskin, a Turkish educator and the principal of Una-Sana College, an institute operating within the Gülen-affiliated Richmond Park Schools Group, was detained by the police in Bihać city.
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