Keyword: Democracy
President Gül dismisses calls to help tackle political turmoil
During a press conference held on Monday, the GYV, whose honorary chairman is Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, stated that a hate crime is being carried out against the Hizmet movement in Turkey and called on President Gül to take the initiative to investigate the executive branch’s recent attempts to render the judiciary dysfunctional.
Should Hizmet establish a political party?
If the Hizmet movement had believed that services to Turkey can best be provided through politics, it would have done so from the beginning. Civil society has a special place in democracies. One can also serve the country by rejecting democratic pressures and upholding rule of law and individual freedoms.
CSOs slam ongoing black propaganda against Hizmet movement
The Law and Democracy Platform, which includes 60 CSOs in İzmir province, held a press conference to protest the polarizing language used by government officials. The representative of the platform, Ömer Mustafa Aytekin, said there have been very unpleasant developments that risk democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.
Gov’t keeps purging, dozens of police officials across Turkey have been removed
The government’s massive purge of members of the police and judiciary following the eruption of a corruption and bribery scandal continued across the country on Tuesday, with dozens more police officials being removed from their posts.
Can Erdoğan finish off the Gülen movement?
In other words, this is not a power struggle but a one-sided attack by an increasingly authoritarian leader on a civil society movement critical of the way government rules the nation.
In this asymmetrical fight, the Hizmet movement has nothing to lose. It is composed of individuals who are dedicated to doing something that they believe is for the good of humanity.
Islamic scholar Gülen files libel case against PM Erdoğan
Gülen’s lawyer Nurullah Albayrak said on Monday that Erdoğan moved beyond borders of freedom of expression and used excessively harsh insults against the Islamic scholar. Gülen is demanding TL 100,000 in compensation for the allegedly denigrating remarks.
GYV calls on President Gül to investigate interference with judiciary
Yeşil said the GYV is calling on Gül to take action to prevent these risks to the constitutional order, the separation of powers, checks and balances, the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. He said: “The public expects him [Gül] to use his powers and authorities under the Constitution to investigate the interventions that sought to render the law dysfunctional, in terms of the graft and bribery investigations.
Turkey’s once-worldly aims falter, even close allies concerned
Power appears to have gone to the prime minister’s head. Angling to become president in order to extend his rule, Erdogan is foolishly profiling and purging former friends in the Hizmet movement, recently firing hundreds of government employees who are allegedly (no one knows for sure as there’s no evidence) sympathetic to the movement’s founder, Fethullah Gulen
AK Party İstanbul head: Purge in state institutions began long before
Maintaining that the reassignment of thousands of people in the police force and dozens in the judiciary since the breaking of the corruption probe, in which four former ministers of the AK Party have also been implicated, should not be considered routine reassignments, Babuşcu said
Censored by theft: Man caught stealing copies of Zaman daily
In the video footage, the young man is seen stealing three Zaman newspapers placed in the mail boxes of an apartment building. When asked by the subscriber who was filming why he was stealing the newspapers, the thief said his father was the AK Party’s Beylikdüzü provincial chairman and that his father had initiated the campaign against Zaman because it is defaming the party.
Gülen-linked journalist association urges President Gül to take action over interventions on graft probe
“We call on the president to observe his duty to prevent the constitutional order, the independence of the judiciary, and the rule of law from being put at risk,” Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV) Chairman Mustafa Yeşil said in a press statement.
The impact of corruption on elections
Yet, looking at the data in several recent surveys, including the AKP’s internal polling, the public does not seem to be buying the conspiracy theories any more, against the background of overwhelming evidence indicating massive wrongdoing in the government. The rushed decision by Erdoğan to reassign thousands of police officers and hundreds of prosecutors and judges as well as introducing controversial bills to reign in the judiciary have all reinforced the perception that Erdoğan and his people are deeply involved in corruption.
When the masks have fallen
It seems that the judiciary will be forced to investigate the claims of a so-called illegal organization, and sham trials will be performed to intimidate the Hizmet movement and cover up the corruption claims that become public on Dec. 17, 2013, by taking tactics from the former Ergenekon supporters nested within the army, the bureaucracy, business circles, the media and the judiciary.
How hateful discourse manipulates our perception
Claims have been made that these multi-billion-dollar deals have generated a huge hoard of funds for Erdoğan to buy off some media outlets through proxies, hire new sets of journalists to defend his government line and even convert critical analysts with fat checks to prod them to the other side of the aisle. And these claims also explain why some media groups are conducting black propaganda against the Hizmet movement.
