EU anti-terror chief: Gülen network not terrorist organization
European counter-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove | Julien Warnard/EPA
Date posted: November 30, 2017
GINGER HERVEY
The EU doesn’t believe Fethullah Gülen’s network is a terrorist organization and is not “likely to change its position soon,” the bloc’s counter-terrorism coordinator told Reuters in an interview published Thursday.
Gilles de Kerchove said the EU would need “substantive” evidence to change its mind on the network of the cleric Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blames for masterminding a coup against his government last year.
Around 50,000 people have been detained and 150,000 suspended in Turkey because they are alleged to be linked to Gülen’s network, with the EU as well as countries including Germany and the U.S. raising concerns about the mass arrests.
Kerchove said that before someone is arrested, “concrete substantive data which shows that they were involved” must be obtained.
Gülen, who denies being behind the failed coup, has been based in the United States since 1999. Turkey has unsuccessfully fought for his extradition since the attempt to depose Erdoğan, but the U.S. has refused, saying it needs more evidence. Turkey has also sought to extradite others with alleged links to the cleric from EU countries.
“The decision on extradition is in the hands of all member states, and most of the time the judiciary, the independent judiciary, and they need hard evidence,” Kerchove said.
Sajjanhar: Dialogue urges one to excel in one’s own faith
Ashok Sajjanhar, the Secretary of the Indian Interior Ministry’s National Foundation for Communal Harmony (NFCH), in a statement he made during a workshop organized by the Journalists and Writers Foundation’s (GYV) Intercultural Dialogue Platform (KADİP), indicated that involvement in dialogue work encourages one to learn one’s faith more profoundly.
Turkey’s tryst with democracy (1)
All of Erdoğan’s recent acts reflect a serious deficit of democracy in the ruling government. These acts include making bogus claims of a parallel structure; targeting institutions linked to Fethullah Gülen’s Hizmet movement; embark on a massive reshuffle of thousands of officials without any reasonable grounds; changing the structure of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) to subjugate the judiciary; openly interfering in the media; strengthening the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and bringing it under the direct control of the prime minister; banning Twitter and YouTube; and speaking with a threatening, bullying and polarizing tone.
Rule of law(lessness) in Turkey?
It turned out that I was overly optimistic, for I did not want to believe that a prime minister who bravely fought the old, authoritarian establishment in the people’s name for years could have changed so much, adopting just the same behavior we were subjected to in the past. I had thought that those bitter experiences were only a distant memory. Unfortunately, I was wrong — terribly so.
UNESCO Global Monitoring Report and Turkish Schools
The Turkish schools around the world offers practical perspectives and practices in redefining “the human” and his needs, reintegrating him into society, overcoming the physical and methodological obstacles to education and leading a robust performance in the path to global peace. Although the report correlates the education crisis at first glance with poverty and social background, education remains as the number-one problem, in a varying extent, in the developed countries as well. What needs to be done is to convey how the Turkish schools are tackling or minimizing many educational problems and, finally, to find out what aspects of the schools’ methods can apply to public schools.
[Caliphate in sight] What to expect in 2014 Turkey
Well, under normal circumstances Erdoğan would get neither himself nor his government involved in what looks like plain bribery. But the situation would be completely different if the underlying assumption of the government is that Erdoğan is the de facto caliph.
Somali denies allegations that ‘aid supplies did not reach camp’
The claim was also denied by the person in charge of the camp, Ibrahim Abdinur Muhammed, demonstrating that defamatory activities are being conducted by pro-government media outlets against Hizmet movement.
Muhammed said the organization had helped 450 families living in the camp and that it continues to send assistance to the camps in six other locations in Somali in the form of health and food supplies and clothing as well as education tools.
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