Plans to abolish “prep schools” in Turkey have sparked a huge feud between two of the country’s most powerful forces on the micro-blogging website Twitter.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AK party have proposed eliminating the schools, which provide private tuition classes to help high school children prepare for university entrance exams.
This has angered supporters of the Gulen movement, which finances and runs many of the schools. Numerous hashtags about the row have been tweeted millions of times over the past week.
#BBCtrending reports that the row points to deeper tensions between Mr Erdogan and the Gulen movement.
Albania: Erdoğan given appropriate response to ‘political’ request on Turkish schools
Albanian Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri has said his country’s relevant authorities gave Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the necessary responses to his recent request for the closure of Turkish schools in the country.
Turkish schools abroad victims of AKP-Gulen conflict
The fate of the Gulen movement’s schools — located in over 160 countries — is being debated following Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s declaration of war in the wake of the Dec. 17 graft probe that targeted individuals associated with his government.
Victims of Erdogan’s witch-hunt and purge get their voice heard
A new website has recently been launched to publish stories or Turkish president Erdogan’s with-hunt, persecution and brutal crack-down on the dissents. The new website is named “Magduriyetler,” which aims to disseminate the stories of the countless violations of law after the coup attempt in July 2016.
Prep school debate [in Turkey] continues
According to Bugün columnist Adem Yavuz Arslan, some newspapers, such as Akit, use very harsh language against the Hizmet movement in the prep school debate. Arslan wrote that newspapers are free to criticize things, but the criticism cannot be made as a form of revenge. The right to open a prep school is a democratic right, Arslan said.
Understanding shifts in Islamic interpretation in Turkey through Gulen-inspired Yamanlar High School
Erdogan regime has transformed most of the seized schools into religious vocational high schools, where teachers mostly teach Salafi beliefs. The Gülen Movement’s first school Yamanlar College was one of them.
Losing rationality in politics and the economy
Turkey has a weak record of institutionalization. Despite the “We are a big state” narrative, today, Turkey’s political model is simple: the leader and the nation. Lacking effective institutions that can accommodate political fluctuations, crises of various calibers can harm Turkey’s stability easily.
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