Fethullah Gulen’s “old friend” detained by İzmir police despite suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease


Date posted: January 23, 2020

An 81-year-old Turkish man, who is known as a “longtime friend of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, was detained by police in the Turkish province of İzmir on Monday due to his links to the Gülen group.

According to the Gulen-friendly tr724 news website, Yusuf Pekmezci, who suffers from advenced Alzheimer’s disease, high blood pressure and osteoporosis, was in hiding for three years.

He is currenlty being held in police custody.

Pekmezci came to public attention with a 2014 interview he gave in which he talked about his love for the movement and Fethullah Gülen.

Source: Turkey Purge , January 22, 2020


Related News

Pro-gov’t journalist proposes torturing jailed Gülen followers to force them to talk

Staunchly pro-government Turkish journalist Cem Küçük has complained about Turkish authorities’ not forcing jailed Gülen movement followers to speak about the group’s activities, suggesting that various kinds of torture could be used to make them talk, the Aktif Haber news website reported. Küçük’s controversial remarks came during a recent segment of “Media Critic” on TGRT […]

Terrorist organization seeks to fill void in Southeast after closure of prep schools

Terrorist organizations are getting ready to fill the void in the education system in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated Southeast following the government’s decision to shut down prep schools and study centers, the Bugün daily said on Monday. “The [terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party] PKK is increasing the number of Education Support Houses [EDEV] in the eastern and southeastern […]

Hizmet movement sticks to principles, AK Party transformed by the state

Holding ia press conference in light of the recent row between the government and the Hizmet movement on Wednesday, Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) President Mustafa Yeşil asdi the Hizmet movement has not changed its principles in the last half century but the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has been transformed by the state and lost its reformist nature.

Turkish schools and businessmen mobilized for Izmir’s EXPO candidacy

The Turkish schools around the globe have been making great effort for Izmir’s EXPO 2020 win. The schools and businessmen have taken action so that Bureau of International Expositions committee opts for Turkey in the voting to take place in Paris on November 27th. “What is lost with Olympics can be made up for in EXPO,” Fethullah Gulen had earlier said.

Turkey overshadows war-hit Syria in number of academics seeking asylum elsewhere

The New York-based Scholar Rescue Fund, a part of the Institute of International Education (IIE) has received an unprecedented number of requests for help, its director Sarah Willcox told an audience at the European Association for International Education’s annual conference, held in Liverpool from 13 to 16 September, Times Higher Education (THE) reported.

Is the Gulen Movement a Threat to the Turkish Government?

Hakan Yesilova The Turkish press has been dominantly occupied with the coup and violence in Egypt and Syria, and one more issue that has erupted, as if out of no where, is a so-called rift between the government and the Gulen Movement (GM), an influential faith-inspired educational movement. The story goes that some influential circles […]

Latest News

Turkish inmate jailed over alleged Gülen links dies of heart attack in prison

Message of Condemnation and Condolences for Mass Shooting at Bondi Beach, Sydney

Media executive Hidayet Karaca marks 11th year in prison over alleged links to Gülen movement

ECtHR faults Turkey for convictions of 2,420 applicants over Gülen links in follow-up to 2023 judgment

New Book Exposes Erdoğan’s “Civil Death Project” Targeting the Hizmet Movement

European Human Rights Treaty Faces Legal And Political Tests

ECtHR rejects Turkey’s appeal, clearing path for retrials in Gülen-linked cases

Erdoğan’s Civil Death Project’ : The ‘politicide’ spanning more than a decade

Fethullah Gülen’s Vision and the Purpose of Hizmet

In Case You Missed It

Turkic American Alliance Condemns Government Takeover of Zaman

Why should education in Pakistan be held hostage to the politics of other countries, however brotherly?

French editor says Gülen’s messages on anti-terrorism revolutionary

Gulen-inspired NGO opens health and education complex in Uganda

Turkish charities take benevolence across borders during Eid al-Adha

Hizmet university serves Iraqi students in Arbil

Northern Iraqis cheer as Turkish schools donate meat

Copyright 2026 Hizmet News