New Level of Witch Hunt: Relatives are Targeted in Turkey

On July 26, Turkish police stormed the house of Muhammet Cakir, a lawyer wanted for arrest on coup charges. Failing to find the lawyer at home, they detained his 86-year-old mother to force her son to surrender. She has been kept as hostage since.

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Erdogan’s government has made Gulenists “the enemy you ascribe to everything that goes poorly in Turkey,” according to Henri Barkey, a fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Visually impaired journalist sent to prison over Gülen links

Visually impaired Turkish journalist Cüneyt Arat was sent to prison late on Monday due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement. When Arat learned that a prison sentence approved by an upper court on Sunday, he turned himself in to the police later the same day.

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

Calls for reform, landmark court rulings, and rising political pressure put the European Convention on Human Rights at a crossroads across the continent. Key Points The European human rights landscape is facing a period of exceptional turbulence, with recent decisions and debates placing the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its overseeing court at […]

Corruption investigation: Questions that will hound PM Erdoğan

Everyone is wondering now what is behind the corruption investigation, and the first “suspect” to come to many minds is the Islamist Gülen movement. Tensions between this group and the AKP have been rising over the years, and boiled over recently due to the prep-school issue – a matter that has received wide media coverage.

The Gülen movement denies this but the vitriol flying between daily Zaman, which is close to Gülen, and Yeni Şafak, which is staunchly pro-AKP, is enough to give one a sense of the bitter struggle involved.

Gülen asked government to be more careful on the language they use: Deputy PM Arınç

Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen asked the Turkish government to be more careful in regional and international issues during his visit, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said May 22 in an interview with public broadcaster TRT. Arınç had meeting with Gülen, who lives in a self-imposed exiled in Pennsylvania, on the sidelines of Prime Minister Recep […]