The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) has responded to a series of claims about and slanderous accusations against the Hizmet movement.
Currently there is a lot of insulting talk on social media and in some media circles about the movement. Some columnists who support the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) claim that members of the Hizmet movement entered into competition with the AK Party to take power in the coming election, which the GYV denied. I could not understand how Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan believed a claim that police officers who support Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen placed a bug in his room. I think the same people who accused the Hizmet movement are the ones who paved the way for such actions.
In practice, a revised constitution would make it much easier for Erdogan to consolidate power entirely, taking Turkey out of the democratic column and making it into a dictatorship, pure and simple.
Neither Erdoğan nor EU the same after five years
Erdoğan is going to Brussels as the prime minister of Turkey who doesn’t even have ambassadors in three of its region’s important capital; Cairo, Tel Aviv and Damascus. A negotiation chapter was opened in November 2013 after a three-year freeze. Erdoğan had to sack the former EU minister from the cabinet because of the allegations in relation with a major graft probe in December 2013 and appointed Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu to that post.
Woman detained over links to Gülen movement after giving birth
A woman was detained less than 24 hours after delivering a baby yesterday for alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen. Betül Uluçam, 34, was detained in the hospital where she had given birth less than a day before.
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 […]
Post-Kemalist but still illiberal Turkey
Many, including myself, expected that the defeat of Kemalism by a broad coalition of liberals, democrats and conservatives under the political leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) would lead to a democratic regime in Turkey with a liberal constitution. Yes, Kemalism is dead but its state-centric, Jacobin and illiberal sprit has been reincarnated in the ruling AK Party. The similarities in the attitude and the policies of the AK Party and its Kemalist predecessors are striking.
Fethullah Gulen, the [Gulen] community, and the prep schools
It is no secret that my bonds of affection with the wise religious leader Fethullah Gulen and his movement go back more than twenty years. I trust that Hocaefendi, with his endless sense of fairness, is aware of this situation. He feels offended firstly because the government signed the National Security Council’s brief without hesitation, and secondly because it has profiled [both him and the movement]. In any case, resisting the closure of the movement’s prep schools is the same as resisting an authoritarian course of events!
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