4-year-old visits dad in jail on Children’s Day wearing T-shirt with newborn brother’s picture
Date posted: April 24, 2017
We can all pack up and go home because a 4-year-old has just rendered Turkey’s Children’s Day meaningless.
Minutes before paying a visit to her jailed father early on Sunday morning, H.A. was photographed in front of Sakarya L Type Prison wearing a T-shirt bearing a photo of her newborn baby brother.
She couldn’t bring the infant himself to visit due to regulations; therefore, his photo was printed on her T-shirt to show the imprisoned father his newborn son.
The father was reportedly arrested as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, which is accused of masterminding a coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
The movement denies any involvement.
However, the government has so far investigated around 90,000 people and jailed more than 47,000 over links to the group. Prisoners in such investigations include teachers, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, students, plumbers, football players, actors and even a comedian.
Turkey’s major assets in terms of successful diplomacy and soft-power policy included Turkish schools opened by the Hizmet movement all around the world; the International Turkish Language Olympiads organized by the same group; business associations within and outside the borders of Turkey; intercultural and interfaith dialogue societies; foreign language publications of Turkish society; Turkish hospitals in several countries; and Turkish international humanitarian aid organizations.
Hizmet-affiliated schools removed from private school incentive list
The Hizmet schools were in the original list of those institutions which met all the criteria for eligibility to receive financial incentives to accept these students. Announced on Monday, the schools were listed on the ministry’s website until Thursday afternoon, when they were taken off without any explanation. However, an official written notice sent from the ministry to governorates on Thursday said: “It was not deemed proper to give such incentives to education institutions whose managers are under fiscal investigation and interrogation within the scope of the Law No. 5549 on the Prevention of Laundering of Crime Revenues and those that had received punishments fiscal irregularities after due inspections before,” and asked the governorates do what the notice requires.
Gülen’s lawyer: Views other than state ideology considered a crime in Turkey
Nurullah Albayrak, the lawyer of prominent Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, has criticized the blocking of herkul.org, a website that regularly broadcasts speeches by Gülen, saying views that are different from the state ideology are considered a crime in Turkey today.
‘Parallel state’ and ‘theft of national will’
There is not a single piece of concrete evidence indicating that prosecutors and police officers had acted in contravention of laws and regulations in the investigation into the corruption claims that implicated some former Cabinet members and their sons. However, these public officials who performed their lawful duties in full compliance with the principles of transparency, accountability and equality — which are fundamental characteristics of the regimes that uphold the rule of law — were recklessly accused by the prime minister and his cronies of being the “parallel state.
Turkish PM Erdoğan lashes out at Gülen as the head of ‘neo-Ergenekon’
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has stepped up his fiery rhetoric against his ally-turned-nemesis, the Gülen movement, criticizing U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen as the leader of “neo-Ergenekon.”
Filipina, infant freed from Turkish jail, but…
The Filipina mother who forcibly was separated from her infant and detained in Turkey for weeks has been released. But their reunion is being cut short by her deportation, in the crackdown following a failed coup in which she had no part. Information is being withheld from Karen’s lawyer and the Philippine Embassy staff assisting her. Forcible separation of an infant from her mother is a humanitarian concern.
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