
Calls that have been made over a period of several months by top government officials, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to boycott schools and institutions run by the Hizmet movement will undermine confidence in Turkish markets, a recent report has said.

One of the attendees of the convention in Washington, columnist Yavuz Semerci wrote in the Habertürk daily on Sunday that organizers of the convention and its sponsor — Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON) — expressed their disapproval of the bill and asked that the subject be left to historians and not politicians.

The Turkic American Alliance (TAA) has refuted the pro-government daily Sabah’s and Yeni Şafak’s claims of “treachery,” linking the Hizmet movement, a faith-based group inspired by Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, with the passing of an “Armenian genocide” resolution at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Students receiving an education in Turkish schools across Europe captivated thousands of Turkish immigrants in Germany with their recitations of naats — poems in praise of the Prophet Muhammad — during a ceremony held in Düsseldorf on Saturday evening to celebrate Holy Birth Week.

The Ministry of Education and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government have been focusing on closing down private prep schools for university preparation (dershanes) and Turkish schools abroad instead of spending its energy on resolving critical problems in the Turkish education system, experts say.

Vural said that if the government does not protect its citizens who are involved in the Turkish schools — which are affiliated with the Hizmet movement, inspired by the teachings of US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen — but instead complains about them to international governments, questions need to be asked.

Dozens of members of the United States Congress, as well as US administration officials and other leading public figures, attended the fourth annual convention organized by the Turkish American Alliance (TAA), the biggest umbrella organization of Turkic Americans, reiterating the solid ties between the people of the US and Turkey.

In an attempt to defame the Hizmet movement inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish government and its media outlets have presented letters sent by civil society representatives affiliated with the faith-based movement to foreign officials providing them with information about the situation in Turkey as “treachery.”

Kenya Embassy donations were channelled through Kimse Yok Mu (or ‘Is Any One there’), a Turkish Non-Governmental Organisation on 29th January, 2013. It is noted that Kimse Yok Mu is one of the international NGOs that actively responded to the Horn of Africa humanitarian crisis in 2011 that saved the lives of thousands of Somali refugees from imminent death due to prolonged drought.

Liberia’s Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai has urged the administration of the Liberian Turkish Light International School to improve the quality of education beyond the secondary level in the country.

Many from various circles, including intellectuals and academics, have leveled harsh criticism against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government’s attempts to shut down Turkish schools abroad affiliated with the Hizmet movement, which is inspired by the teachings of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.