Date posted: August 6, 2016
Fethullah Gulen Talked to Kurdish TV NRT on Kurds, human rights and Erdogan.
Tags: Asia | Defamation of Hizmet | Fethullah Gulen | Interviews with Fethullah Gulen | Iraq | Kurdish Issue | Military coups in Turkey |

The government has developed a two-stage strategy in order to manage this scandal. The first stage was to blame foreign powers. The second stage was to declare the Gülen community as the representative of these foreign powers in the country and thereby put the blame on the Gülen community.

All of Erdoğan’s recent acts reflect a serious deficit of democracy in the ruling government. These acts include making bogus claims of a parallel structure; targeting institutions linked to Fethullah Gülen’s Hizmet movement; embark on a massive reshuffle of thousands of officials without any reasonable grounds; changing the structure of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) to subjugate the judiciary; openly interfering in the media; strengthening the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and bringing it under the direct control of the prime minister; banning Twitter and YouTube; and speaking with a threatening, bullying and polarizing tone.

The faith-based social movement Gülen has inspired as one of the major civil society forces in Turkey which, through educational, media, business and social solidarity institutions, promotes democratization, socio-economic development and integration with the global community.

Judges in Haarlem have banned four mothers from calling an Islamic primary school in Zaanstad a ‘terrorist’ school. People who press ahead with saying the school supports terrorism face a fine of €1,000 with a maximum of €10,000.

On the hot evening of August 20 in Gaziantep, Turkey, a still-unidentified person wearing an explosive vest laced with ball bearings navigated a series of narrow alleyways in the city’s Akdere neighborhood. He approached a wedding put on by a Kurdish family from Siirt; they were hosting a Henna night, a traditional ritual where the hands of the bride-to-be are tattooed with temporary ink. At 10:50 pm, the young man’s bomb exploded, killing 54 people. At least 31 were under the age of 18.

The ongoing graft investigation, which hit the press on Dec. 17 with a major police operation resulting in the arrest of 24 suspects — including prominent business figures and the sons of two ministers — sparked a public discussion on the links between politics and Islam, as a majority of the members of the ruling party present themselves as devout Muslims.
