Disabled woman loses health care due to son-in-law’s Gülen links


Date posted: November 14, 2019

Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a member of parliament from Turkey’s left wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), said the health care benefits of a gravely disabled woman were cut off because her son-in-law was a public servant dismissed from his job by government decree.

More than 130,000 public servants were summarily dismissed by government decree during two years of emergency rule declared following a coup attempt in July 2016. The government crackdown mainly targeted the Gülen movement, a religious group accused of orchestrating the coup attempt, but also spread to take in other opposition groups.

Aslı Kır was not found suitable for receiving health care benefit while the state of emergency was in force after it was noticed that her son-in-law was dismissed from his job by government decree, according to district governorship’s statement posted by Gergerlioğlu on Twitter.

“We will not let them be forgotten and call out before the justice,” HDP deputy said.

According to a report by rights group Amnesty International in October, those dismissed did not just lose their jobs, but were cut off from access to their professions, as well as housing and health care benefits, leaving them and their families without a livelihood. Those dismissed include teachers, academics, doctors, police officers, media workers employed by the state broadcaster, members of the armed forces, as well as people working at all levels of the local and central government. 

Source: Ahval , November 10, 2019


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Terrorist organization, you say

He is 73 years old and is known as a respected scholar who has been studying Islamic exegesis. He is well-known in academia. He was promoted to associate professor in the field of Islamic exegesis back in 1977. He served as head of the exegesis department at the faculty of theology at Erzurum’s Atatürk University, conducted research in Paris Sorbonne, taught at the faculty of Islamic studies at the Islamic University of Madinah, was the chair of exegesis studies at Marmara University and conducted academic studies at International Islamic University of Malaysia. He is the author of 13 books and hundreds of articles.

Persecution of the Gülen Movement in Turkey

The Gülen (a.k.a Hizmet) movement, a faith-based community, has been subject to political persecution for more than two years by the Turkish government since they stood up against corruption and injustice under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has publicly called for a “witch hunt,” and arrests, threats, and harassments have now become a routine for participants and sympathizers of the movement.

Gülen says paying price for not supporting Erdoğan’s desire for presidential system

“Mr Erdoğan put pressure on me and Hizmet sympathizers to publicly support his idea of a presidential system. He increased the pressure by supporting government-funded alternatives to Hizmet institutions and then began threatening to close them down,” Gülen stated in a written interview with Nahal Toosi, which was published on Friday. According to Gülen, Hizmet sympathizers are paying a heavy price for their independence.

Neither conservative nor democrat

Media campaigns, accusations and the prime minister’s statements about the leader of the movement are of unprecedented scale in Turkey. Filing records on sympathizers of the Gülen movement, removing them from public offices they happen to occupy, attacking its financial institutions; none of this has ever been seen in the past regarding Islamic movements.

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