Date posted: July 18, 2016
Fethullah Gulen challenges Erdogan, calls for international probe into Turkey coup allegations, and says will accept findings.
Source: Youtube , July 16, 2016
Tags: Defamation of Hizmet | Democracy | Fethullah Gulen | Military coups in Turkey |

Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, founder of the youth group Positive Changes, said in an interview with Today’s Zaman that Zeynalov’s deportation from Turkey has the potential to damage the country’s international reputation. “For democratic countries, freedom of speech is the main pillar of free media. We cannot speak about stable democracy in states where this pillar is not strong. The governments who are shaking this pillar might cast a serious shadow over all of the positive work they have been doing for a long time,” Hajiyev said.

US-based watchdog Freedom House has criticized Turkey’s controversial security package, which grants extensive powers to police officersand provincial governors, saying that the passing of the bill in Parliament is a move to undermine democracy in Turkey.

Gülen argued that Muslims should work against “the decline of morality” in society, calling for conservative values like faith and family to be put before modern individualism – but always within the existing secular state structures.

While the narrative voiced by Erdogan and echoed by the Turkish press blamed Gülen exclusively, many Turks and diplomats quietly harbored suspicions that Erdogan planned and staged the coup himself as a Turkish equivalent of the Reichstag Fire. That may once have sounded like a fringe conspiracy, but increasingly it seems the likely genesis of events last July.

A columnist for the pro-government daily Yeni Şafak, Cem Küçük, continues to target journalists critical of the government for regular intimidation in his column.On Jan. 16, Küçük argued that an operation will be staged against newspapers with ties to the Hizmet movement and that the journalists who work in those newspapers would be brought to trial. He also said that the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) would be tried over its press releases.

The ruling party has been undermining rule of law since the graft and bribery investigation that became public on December 17, 2013. It sees itself unfettered by laws and the Constitution. It has been sticking to the hoax of “parallel structure” –a veiled reference to members of the Hizmet movement inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen– in a desperate attempt to cover up the graft investigations.
