
Charging Zaman daily Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı for a crime based on two columns and one report published in his paper is “unlawful nonsense,” according to intellectuals and politicians observing the government-backed media crackdown in which the editor was detained.

Seval Yıldırım, a professor of law at Whittier Law School, said in a statement to Today’s Zaman on Wednesday that for the US to extradite Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen without a formal case against him would be an infringement of US law.

Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has strongly criticized abusive language and remarks within pro-government circles insulting members of the Hizmet movement, saying this kind of behavior is hypocritical and is being employed to cover up their own sins.

It is a well-known fact that then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had sent Bülent Arınç to Mr. Fethullah Gülen to give him the message, “We are ready to do anything you want us to do,” and that he had called on Mr. Gülen to return to the country to “put an end to homesickness” in the witness of tens of thousands of spectators in a stadium.

Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen has said he believes many people, including he himself, would like to be in the shoes of Zaman daily Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı and Samanyolu Broadcasting Group General Manager Hidayet Karaca, who were detained in a police operation on Sunday, implying that it is an honor for the journalists to be in custody under Turkey’s current circumstances.

Kimse Yok Mu Foundation extended yet another helping hand to the orphan in Kyrgyzstan. The foundation received a group of them for an exclusive ceremony at the Ataturk-Alatoo University in the capital city Bishkek. The orphans were served dinner first and then watched the university students’ shows in their honor.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Wednesday released a special report for 2014 designating Turkey is the world’s 10 worst country for journalists, once again underlining the country’s deteriorating situation for freedom of expression and free media.