İpek Holding chairman denies reports about alleged mansion for Gülen
Date posted: January 23, 2014
İSTANBUL
Koza İpek Holding’s chairman, Akın İpek, who is known for his support for the Hizmet movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, released a statement on Thursday denying reports in the Sabah and Takvim dailies which had claimed that İpek has been constructing a luxury villa for Gülen.
Sabah and Takvim reported on Thursday that İpek had been constructing a 14,000-square-meter luxury villa where Gülen will allegedly stay when he returns to Turkey from Pennsylvania, where he currently lives. In the press release, İpek strongly denied the reports, stating that the mansion shown in the photos published in the dailies has belonged to their family for over 40 years.
Stating that such reports violate their private lives and has upset his entire family, İpek said the dailies had reported baseless news using imaginary scenarios as though they were facts. İpek said the mansion had recently been renovated as his mother will move in
Hate-filled language, such as “dirty water mixed with the milk,” “we will enter their dens” and “hashashin,” all uttered by the prime minister as part of his hate speech against the Gülen movement, was also a method employed during the witch-hunts in medieval Europe.
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These operations might have targeted the government in some respects, but so far no concrete evidence has been produced about deliberate, systematic and willful inclusion of the Hizmet movement in this plot. It is true that the Hizmet movement’s media group has been lending support to the graft and bribery investigation.
Current defamation campaign against Hizmet was part of Ergenekon scheme
A major campaign launched by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and media organs to defame and discredit the Hizmet movement was among the plans of the Ergenekon network, which once attempted a coup d’état against the AK Party.
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The Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV), whose honorary chairman is Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, released a statement on its website on Wednesday strongly rejecting claims that the Hizmet movement formed a political party.
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It isn’t just last month’s attempted coup that the Gulen movement is being blamed for! Everything from suicide bomb attacks to past mine disasters are being laid at the cleric’s doorstep. Just to name a few: last November’s Turkish shootdown of a Russian fighter jet, an explosion at a coal mine in Soma led to an underground fire that killed 301 people in 2014, a horrific suicide bombing at a wedding in Gaziantep killed dozens in August and even killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007.
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