US-based Turkish NGOs launch aid campaign for Syrian refugees
Date posted: February 24, 2014
VIRGINIA
Various Turkish nongovernmental organizations affiliated with Hizmet Movement carried out a project to distribute aid material for the Syrian refugees living in Turkey.
The Mid-Atlantic Federation of Turkic American Associations (MAFTAA) and American Turkish Friendship Association (ATFA) decided to carry out the project during a visit in the refugee camps in eastern Turkey. The associations contacted with officials from Kimse Yok Mu to deliver around 18,000 blankets they collected in three weeks from the volunteers.
Executive director of Northern Virginia Regional Commission Mark Gibb told Cihan news agency that he is very amazed with the large amount of materials which was collected. Gibb also stated that he had chance to know Hizmet Movement, inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, through the aid campaigns.
The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey exceeded 600,000 and more than 400,000 of them are living outside the refugee camps set up mainly in Turkish border cities, the Turkish disaster management agency stated in October 2013.
Last week I had the pleasure of accompanying a group of Jewish community leaders on a Niagara Foundation sponsored trip to Türkiye (Turkey). Our mission: to provide the group with windows into the Jewish experience in Turkey. One of the trip participants would describe this as, “not a Jewish trip to Turkey but a group of Jewish people traveling to Turkey.”
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Discrimination by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which argues that it has addressed this issue vis-à-vis religious people, has never been analyzed. The recent row between the AKP and the Hizmet movement refers to an important and interesting fact, because it reveals this reality. In light of these discussions, bureaucrats who have been discriminated by the AKP government because of their views are now talking.
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How do Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s repeated calls for the closure of Turkish schools located on the African continent, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, serve Turkish national interests? It appears that in his fight against a “parallel structure,” which he equates with institutions and people inspired by the faith-based Gülen movement, also known as the Hizmet movement, the current Turkish president is losing a sense of direction.
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Erdoğan had a hard time convincing the EU, who were also concerned over the revelation of documents indicating the government’s interference in the judiciary.
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CSOs slam smear campaign against Hizmet, call on PM to stop hate speech
A large-scale dark propaganda campaign has been conducted by some circles close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government against the Hizmet movement and Gülen, particularly since a corruption scandal erupted in December of 2013 in which three Cabinet ministers’ sons, many state bureaucrats and also well-known businessmen were implicated.
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