News
How the fallout from Turkey’s coup attempt has been felt in South Africa
In the late evening of Friday, July 15, word spread across the world that a coup was under way in Turkey. The president was missing, the military announced it had taken control of the country, and a few hours later, in the early hours Saturday morning, the coup was over.
Turkish spies working for President Erdogan ‘infiltrate Germany’s migrant community’
Turks, who make up the majority of Germany’s immigrant community, claim their schools and mosques are being spied on by Erdogan’s undercover agents to root out supporters of Fethullah Gülen – the man the Turkish president claims is behind July’s bloody military coup.
Fethullah Gulen ‘very confident’ Turkey extradition from US will fail
Alp Aslandogan, president of the New York-based Alliance for Shared Values (AFSV), said Gulen believes the Turkish authorities will not be able to produce concrete evidence to link him to the attempted coup in Turkey last month because that link [to the coup] is false… “So if something is not true, how can they prove it?’ Aslandogan told Middle East Eye in a telephone interview.
As Gulen movement contracts in Africa, worry over who will fill the vacuum
Abdallah Kheri, who in Kenya heads the Islamic Research and Education Trust, worries that shuttering Gulen schools and other institutions could leave a vacuum that the so-called Islamic State will seek to fill. “Closing down the institutions would definitely grant gains to the fundamentalists,” he said. In Kenya, the Rev. Wilybard Lagho, Mombasa Roman Catholic diocese vicar general, said he would lament the demise of Gulen schools.
Newly-released journo offers insider view at victims of Turkey Purge
Briefly detained for taking photos of the street next to the Istanbul’s Gayrettepe Police Station, the journalist Tuğba Tekerek has talked about her detention period, shedding lights on what people, jailed as part of the government’s ever-increasing crackdown on the Gülen Movement, get through behind bars.
Monday Talk with Alp Aslandogan on Gulen Movement and Recent Coup Attempt in Turkey
Vocal Europe: What sort of link does Alliance for Shared Values have with the movement in general and with Mr Gulen in particular? Alp Aslandogan: Alliance for Shared Values (AFSV) has six regional partner organizations and AFSV serves as a loose umbrella for these organizations. They focus on interfaith and intercultural dialogue, helping new immigrants […]
The Real Enemy Within Turkey
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.
Don’t lose the plot
Turkey’s attempted coup shocked an already tense society. At least 240 people were killed, and the country narrowly averted a disastrous military takeover. The plot was led in part by followers of the Gulen movement, a secretive Muslim sect that runs a global network of schools, charities and businesses and has infiltrated the Turkish state. It is only natural that Turks should be determined to identify and punish the conspirators.
