Date posted: October 8, 2016
Nowadays, most articles about Turkey, Erdogan and Gulen have a default sentence: “Erdogan and Gulen were former allies”. It is said and written so many times that eventually became a fact. However, the reality is not that simple.
This 2 minute-video illustrates Gulen-Erdogan history.
Tags: Fethullah Gulen | Hizmet (Gulen) movement | Hizmet and politics | Turkey |

People imprisoned as part of a government crackdown on the Gülen movement are being systematically tortured in the most barbaric ways including rape, removal of nails and the insertion of objects into their anuses, according to the president of a leading lawyers association.

Having failed to make progress on the settlement process, which was supposed to pave the way for the disarming of Kurdish militants and address long-standing Kurdish demands, the Turkish government has now turned its attention to finding a scapegoat on which to place blame for the stalled talks ahead of national elections slated for June 2015.

Ayşe Kaya, 30-year-old woman who gave birth to a baby in İstanbul early on Tuesday, was reportedly detained by police with her newborn baby later the same day. Turkish government has systematically been detaining women on coup charges either when they are pregnant or shortly after giving birth. This incident is the second in a week and 16th in the past 9 months.

Like many autocratic leaders, Erdogan was quick to blame members of opposition and sympathizers of Gulen Movement for the coup attempt. He particularly singled out the United States-based Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen as the mastermind of the coup, even when it is on record that the highly-respected cleric publicly condemned the coup when it was still on.

On one day, police paid a visit both to the residence and workplace of the businessman, who requested to remain anonymous, even though there had not been any violation of law on his part. Asking arbitrary questions at the businessman’s residence, such as, “Why did you sue the prime minister?”, “What does your husband [the businessman] do?”, “Do you own the house or is it rental?” and “Do you have a car?”, the police asked for the mobile phone number of the businessman and left. The policeman said that they came from the Tepebaşı Police Station in Ankara.

Turkey and Russia could carry out a joint operation to abduct US-based Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen to Turkey due to Gülen’s alleged role in the assassination of a Russian ambassador in December 2016 as well as a failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016, the pro-government Akşam daily reported.
