
[Erdogan] has called Hizmet a state within a state, which to me is a strange characterization. To me, that’s like saying that the Catholics are a state within a state in America, or the Jews, a state within a state in America. Those kinds of statements are derogatory, they’re pejoratives. Catholics have a right to seek influence in America; Jews have a right to seek influence in America, that’s how we operate here.

A visiting Turkish university director who had yet to be convicted of any crime was finally released from the Sungai Buloh Prison after being conferred refugee status, which has been conferred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The UNHCR identification supersedes the cancellation of his visa.

A Turkish court on Monday released a housewife, a mother of five whose children were abandoned in a parking lot after her detention, on TL 50,000 bail. This is a high figure in a country where the minimum wage is approximately TL 1,300. The woman will be put behind bars again if she fails to pay the bail within seven days.

A group of police officers awaited outside of the Alanya Başkent Hospital in order to detain a woman who gave birth several hours ago, according to a tweet by former deputy Feyzi İşbaşaran. Fadime Günay, whose husband has recently been detained by police over alleged links to the Gulen movement, gave birth to a boy late on Sunday.

The director assured the public that claims linking the institution to an alleged terror network were grossly untrue and a fabrication made with the intention of spoiling its image. “Our schools have no link with any terror group, we are a local registered charity organisation where every single sent obtained from schools fee is used for the redevelopment of the schools,” he added.

I’m saddened to hear that the Hizmet Movement here is being categorized as a terror group. To classify them as terrorists in any form is a great misrepresentation. And I consider it a privilege and an honor to be associated with them and to be part of the brotherhood. They’re a benefit to the Muslim community and humanity as a whole.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said in Ankara on Thursday that the state of emergency which was declared following a failed coup attempt in July of last year will continue until the faith-based Gülen movement, which the government accuses of being behind the coup attempt, is completely wiped out from state institutions.

National War College professor Taşpınar says extradition remains unlikely because Ankara has presented no concrete evidence directly implicating him in the coup attempt. “I think what [Washington] should do is to basically tell the Turks they need a smoking gun. They need much clearer evidence, which is not there yet,” he says

As the Turkish lira plunged even further on Friday, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım claimed the Gülen movement was responsible for the deterioration in the country’s economic outlook. According to Yıldırım, “separatists” and sympathizers of the Gülen movement are working hard to ruin the Turkish economy in the eyes of the world.

My husband was in an exhausted state when he got into the room. There were punch marks on his face. He was suffering psychologically; he begged not to go back down to the detention room. He was saying “If you wish to give me 50 years in prison, do so, but do not take me down there”.